Patent ID: 7804539

Claim:
A method of driving a solid-state imaging device comprising: a semiconductor substrate; a plurality of photoelectric converting elements arranged in a two-dimensional array on a light-receiving surface of the semiconductor substrate; and a charge transfer path disposed along each of columns of photoelectric converting elements, the charge transfer path reading out charges detected at each of photoelectric converting elements in a column of the photoelectric converting elements and transferring the charges, the photoelectric converting elements in the column thereof comprising two groups, each containing every other photoelectric converting element, the method comprising reading out charges from the two groups into the charge transfer path at a time difference between the two groups wherein a read-out pulse is applied to a charge transfer electrode of the charge transfer path to read out a charge from a photoelectric converting element into the charge transfer path, and wherein when the charges are read out from any one of the two groups, a potential between a potential of the read-out pulse and a potential of the pulse of the polarity opposite to the read-out pulse is applied to charge transfer electrodes both adjacent to the charge transfer electrode to which the read-out pulse is applied.