Appeal No. 1998-3135 Page 9
Application No. 08/789,519
higher voltage than the outside power source voltage.” Kadota
likewise asserts (translation, page 9), with regard to the
embodiment shown in
Figure 5, that “the electric charge of the first . . .
diffusion layer can be reset with a high voltage even when the
power source voltage is low, and a sufficient output voltage
can be obtained.” From the above teachings of Kadota, we
find that the voltage of the first diffusion region 2 can be
reset with a high voltage. This begs the question of whether
the resetting of the voltage of the diffusion layer changes
the charge-to-voltage conversion factor. On page 3 of the
appellants’ specification, in a description of the prior art,
the specification discloses
in the conventional charge-to-voltage converter
of a floating diffusion output type and a floating
gate output type mentioned above, the capacitance of
the converter is of a fixed value. It is,
therefore, impossible to selectively change the
charge-to-voltage conversion factor of the
converter, and the convertion factor is determined
merely as a single value as follows.
With regard to the signal charge quantity Q, the
signal amplitude V in the FD region 1 (in FIGURE 5)
and 11 (in FIGURE 6) is expressed as
V = Q/C = Ne-/C .... (1)
where N is the number of electrons; e- denotes an
elemental charge (- 1.6x 10-19[C]); and C is the
capacitance of the FD region 1 (in FIGURE 5) and 11
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