Patent ID: RE41867

Claim:
A MOS (metal-oxide-semiconductor) image pick-up device comprising: a semiconductor substrate, an imaging region formed on the semiconductor substrate by arraying plural unit pixels, and a peripheral circuit region comprising a driving circuit for operating the imaging region formed on the semiconductor substrate; where each of the unit pixels comprises: a photodiode, MOS transistors, and a first device-isolation portion comprising a portion next to the photodiode and a portion not next to the photodiode, and the peripheral circuit region comprises a second device-isolation portion for isolating devices in the driving circuit, wherein the following are satisfied: I. each of the first device-isolation portion not next to the photodiode and the second device-isolation portion has a structure comprising: A. an electrically insulating film formed on a surface of the substrate so as to erode the substrate to a depth in a range of 1 nm to 50 nm, or B. both an electrically insulating film formed on a surface of the substrate so as to erode the substrate to a depth in a range of 1 nm to 50 nm and an impurity diffusion region formed within the substrate, and II. each of the first device-isolation portions next to the photodiode has a structure consisting of only an impurity diffusion region formed within the substrate directly under the substrate surface.