Abstract: In an image sensing device, a photodiode is connected to a drain of a MOS transistor. The drain is connected to a gate of the MOS transistor via a resistor. The MOS transistor operates in a subthreshold region to output a signal being logarithmically proportional to the intensity of incident light to the photodiode.

Abstract: A charge coupled device includes shift registers, a common transfer electrode, and a floating and diffusion layer. Clock pulses are applied to the common transfer electrode. In response to the clock pulses, the common transfer electrode outputs signal charges to the floating and diffusion layer at a time when the shift registers are not being driven. Therefore, there is no output voltage level difference between the different shift registers.

Abstract: A solid-state image sensing apparatus includes a solid state image sensing device having a characteristic that an output voltage thereof natural-logarithmically varies in accordance with light reception amount. An image sensing output signal is obtained with respect to each pixel when uniform light is irradiated to the solid-state image sensing device. The difference is then calculated between an image sensing output signal obtained with respect to each pixel in actual sensing and an image sensing output signal with respect to a pixel corresponding thereto which signal is stored, to form an image signal.

Abstract: An image sensing device that outputs a signal logarithmically proportional to the intensity of the incident light. The image sensing device makes use of a sub-threshold current flowing between the drain and source of a MOS transistor when the gate voltage is below the threshold voltage (above which the MOS transistor is nominally conductive and below which nominally non-conductive). Since the logarithmic conversion is done in the photosensing section of a solid-state image sensing device, the output from the device is already compressed and is easily handled by a small capacity CCD. Some output systems for the image sensing device of the present invention are also described.

Abstract: A photosensor, or an image sensor made of many such photosensors, including a plurality of photosensor pixels each having a logarithmic converter. The logarithmic converter converts source charges that are produced by a photoreceptor (or a photodiode) and proportional to the amount of the incident light into signal charges logarithmically proportional to the source charges whose amount does not grow so rapid as the amount of source charges grows. Owing to the logarithmic converter, the dynamic range of the photosensor (or image sensor) has a very wide dynamic range.

Abstract: There is disclosed a light-sensitive device comprising: at least one light-sensitive element having a surface for receiving an incident light, and at least one color filter made from polyimide resin mixed with an organic pigment, applied on the light-receiving surface of the light-sensitive element. There is also disclosed a manufacturing method of a light-sensitive device having one or more light-sensitive regions, comprising the steps of:(a) applying at least one color filter layer on the light-receiving surface of a light-sensitive region formed on a wafer of a semiconductor material, said layer being made from a polyimide resin containing an organic pigment;(b) dicing said wafer into individual chips;(c) bonding one of said chips to a lead frame member having electrical lead means;(d) bonding electrical wires between the chip and said electrical lead means of said lead frame member for the connection to at least one external device; and(e) molding said chip bonded to said lead frame members with a resin.