Patent ID: 7199826
Filing Date: 2007-04-03
Classification: H01L,H04N

Abstract:
1. A solid-state image pickup device, comprising: a semiconductor substrate having a two-dimensional plane on a surface thereof; photoelectric converter elements formed in or on said two-dimensional plane in a matrix configuration having rows and columns, wherein (m*n) rows of said photoelectric converter elements form a set, where m and n are integers greater than one; 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 above said photoelectric converter elements, said array including color filters of a plurality of colors arranged in a repeating pattern in the column direction, said repeating pattern comprising a unit of n rows, and said color filters being formed in a one-to-one correspondence with said photoelectric converter elements; and a drive circuit capable of conducting a symmetric readout operation in each set of (m*n) rows of photoelectric converter elements, wherein rows read-out by said symmetric readout operation are distributed with non-readout rows of equal interval in the column direction of said array, said symmetric readout operation comprising: a first readout operation for reading first electric charges from a first group of photoelectric converter element rows which have an asymmetric distribution with non-readout rows of unequal interval in the column direction into said vertical charge transfer channel regions; a j×n-rows transfer operation for transferring the read-out first electric charges j×n rows after said first readout operation, where j is an integer greater than one; and a second readout operation for reading second electric charges from a second group of photoelectric converter element rows which have an asymmetric distribution with non-readout rows of unequal interval in the column direction, at positions j×n rows downstream of the rows of said first read-out operation, into said vertical charge transfer channel regions, to respectively add the read-out second electric charges to the transferred first electric charges in said vertical charge transfer channel regions, each one of said read-out second electric charges being added to a respective one of said transferred first electric charges of a same color, said first and second readout operations being capable of reading electric charges from two rows of one unit of photoelectric converter element rows.