image sensors and a merging circuit for merging the outputs from the ccd image sensors into a signal for transmission on a single electrical conductor application_number US 19740388 A description an embodiment of this invention will be explained in detail with reference to the drawings fig9 is a block diagram of a contact type image scanner illustrating an embodiment of the present invention in the illustrated embodiment the image scanner comprises four ccd image sensors 14 1 through 14 4 arranged in a row each of the image sensors 14 1 through 14 4 comprises 512 bits or pixels a sequencer 19 comprising a counter 19a a rom read only memory 19b a latch circuit 19c and a pulse reshaping circuit 19d receives a clock pulse u03c6 from an input terminal 21 external to the sequencer 19 through a signal line e and a start pulse u03c6 s from an input terminal 20 through a signal line q the outputs sent from the sequencer 19 to the ccd image sensors 14 1 through 14 4 include u03c6 t which is output through a common signal line f and u03c6 r which is output through a common signal line k the clock pulses u03c6 1 through u03c6 4 are connected via the signal lines g to j to the ccd image sensors 14 1 through 14 4 individually and the outputs of the ccd image sensors 14 1 through 14 4 are connected via respective output nodes li to oi to sensor amplifiers 16 1 through 16 4 the outputs from the sensor amplifiers.