Patent ID: 7825976

Claim:
A solid-state image sensing apparatus comprising: an image sensing region which includes: a plurality of photoelectric conversion units laid out on a semiconductor substrate two-dimensionally, each of the photoelectric conversion units converting light into signal charge; and a plurality of amplification units each of which amplifies an output from a corresponding one of the photoelectric conversion units and outputs an amplified signal; a plurality of vertical signal lines through which signals of the photoelectric conversion units are transmitted in a column direction; a horizontal direction selection unit operable to select a row of photoelectric conversion units from the plurality of the photoelectric conversion units laid out in the image sensing region; a vertical direction selection unit operable to select a column of photoelectric conversion units from the plurality of the photoelectric conversion units laid out in the image sensing region; and a first accumulation capacitor which is connected to a vertical line for each column and accumulates the signal of the photoelectric conversion unit, wherein a capacitance of the first accumulation capacitor used when summing the signals of the photoelectric conversion units in plural rows is smaller than a capacitance of the first accumulation capacitor used when not summing the signals of the photoelectric conversion units in the plural rows.