Patent ID: 8547458
Filing Date: 2013-10-01
Classification: H01L,H04N

Abstract:
1. A solid-state image pickup device comprising on a semiconductor substrate: a pixel array including a plurality of photodiodes that are disposed in a matrix (i, j) to convert light beams into signal charges and accumulate the signal charges; readout circuits provided above and below the pixel array; electric charge transfer gates each for reading out the signal charges accumulated in the corresponding photodiode; a floating diffusion for converting into electric potentials the signal charges that are photoelectrically converted by the photodiodes and are read out through the electric charge transfer gates; a reset transistor for resetting the signal charges; and an amplifier transistor for amplifying the read out signal charges, the reset transistor and the amplifier transistor being shared by the four adjacent photodiodes, and the photodiodes including a first photodiode (i, j), a second photodiode (i, j+1), a third photodiode (i+1, j+n), and a fourth photodiode (i+n, j+n+1) being disposed respectively, in which n is equal to −1 or +1, wherein the signal charges are read out from the first and third photodiodes by one of the readout circuits above and below the pixel array, and the signal charges are read out from the second and fourth photodiodes by the readout circuit that is not used to read out the signal charges from the first and third photodiodes.