Image pickup apparatus and processing method for result of image pickup

Abstract

The present invention is applied to an image pickup apparatus for which, for example, a CMOS solid-state image pickup element is used. One screen image is divided into a plurality of blocks, and a motion is detected for each of the blocks to control the exposure time of the block.

1 . (canceled) 
     
     
         2 . An image pickup element comprising:
 a first semiconductor substrate including an image pickup section having a plurality of pixel blocks; and   a second semiconductor substrate stacked on the first semiconductor substrate and including a signal processing circuit configured to process results of an image pickup for each of the pixel blocks from the image pickup section, the second semiconductor substrate including a plurality of pulse production blocks configured to control exposure time of the image pickup section,   wherein the pulse production blocks are electrically connected, respectively, to the pixel blocks, the pulse production blocks arranged over the pixel blocks,   wherein the second semiconductor substrate includes a motion amount detection circuit that uses the results of the image pickup of the pixel blocks output simultaneously and parallelly to individually detect the motion amount for each of the blocks,   in which the motion amount for each of the blocks is detected by cumulatively adding the results of the image pickup for each of the blocks in a unit of a frame to calculate an average value for each of the blocks and by calculating for each of the blocks an interframe difference value as a difference between, for a same block of the blocks, the average value calculated of a current frame and the average value calculated of a preceding frame,   wherein each of the pulse production blocks includes a shutter pulse production circuit configured to produce a shutter pulse and each of the pixel blocks includes a reset control circuit configured to receive the shutter pulse from the shutter pulse production circuit of the corresponding pulse production block.   
     
     
         3 . An image pickup apparatus comprising:
 an imaging sensing unit including a first semiconductor substrate including an image pickup section having a plurality of pixel blocks; and   a control unit including a second semiconductor substrate, the second semiconductor substrate stacked on the first semiconductor substrate and including a signal processing circuit configured to process results of an image pickup for each of the pixel blocks from the image pickup section, the second semiconductor substrate including a plurality of pulse production blocks configured to control exposure time of the image pickup section,   wherein the pulse production blocks are electrically connected, respectively, to the pixel blocks, the pulse production blocks arranged over the pixel blocks   wherein the second semiconductor substrate includes a motion amount detection circuit that uses the results of the image pickup of the pixel blocks output simultaneously and parallelly to individually detect the motion amount for each of the blocks,   in which the motion amount for each of the blocks is detected by cumulatively adding the results of the image pickup for each of the blocks in a unit of a frame to calculate an average value for each of the blocks and by calculating for each of the blocks an interframe difference value as a difference between, for a same block of the blocks, the average value calculated of a current frame and the average value calculated of a preceding frame,   wherein each of the pulse production blocks includes a shutter pulse production circuit configured to produce a shutter pulse and each of the pixel blocks includes a reset control circuit configured to receive the shutter pulse from the shutter pulse production circuit of the corresponding pulse production block.