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Solid-state image pickup device and control thereof

  • US 20020135689A1
  • Filed: 02/28/2002
  • Published: 09/26/2002
  • Est. Priority Date: 03/08/2001
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A solid-state image pickup device, comprising:

  • a semiconductor substrate having a two-dimensional plane on a surface thereof;

    photoelectric converter elements arranged in a matrix configuration having rows and columns, and formed in said two-dimensional plane;

    one vertical charge transfer channel region formed in said semiconductor substrate for each of the columns of said photoelectric converter elements, adjacent to said each column;

    two charge transfer electrodes so disposed over said vertical charge transfer channel regions for each of the rows of said photoelectric converter elements as to intersect said vertical charge transfer channel regions;

    an array of color filters each of which is formed for each of said photoelectric converter elements over said each photoelectric converter element, said array including color layouts each of which includes n rows of said color filters; and

    a drive circuit for conducting a readout operation in which (m*n) rows of photoelectric converter elements are classified as one set, a plurality of units of photoelectric converter element rows which are symmetrically distributed are respectively selected from said sets of photoelectric converter element rows, and electric charge is read from said plural units of photoelectric converter element rows to be fed to said vertical charge transfer channel regions, said readout operation comprising;

    a first readout operation for reading electric charge from a first group of photoelectric converter element rows which have an asymmetric distribution, into said vertical charge transfer channel regions;

    a j-row transfer operation for transferring the electric charge for j rows after said first readout operation; and

    a second readout operation for reading electric charge from a second group of photoelectric converter element rows which have an asymmetric distribution at positions to which the electric charge is transferred by said j-row transfer operation, into said vertical charge transfer channel regions, and for adding the electric charges to each other in said vertical charge transfer channel regions, said first and second readout operations reading electric charge from two rows included in one unit of photoelectric converter element rows.

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