Patent ID: 8149296

Claim:
A solid-state image pickup device comprising: a light receiving surface of a semiconductor substrate having an array of pixels, said array of pixels including white pixels having no color filter and red, green and blue pixels having corresponding red, green and blue color filters; said white pixels include: a photodiode generating and accumulating photocharges corresponding to received light, a floating diffusion, a transfer transistor having a source-drain path connected between said photodiode and said floating diffusion and a gate receiving a transfer drive signal, said transfer transistor selectively coupling said photodiode and said floating diffusion to transfer photocharges from said photodiode to said floating diffusion or isolating said photodiode and said floating diffusion dependent upon a digital state of said transfer drive signal, an additional capacitance, a capacitance-coupling transistor having a source-drain path connected between said floating diffusion and said additional capacitance and a gate receiving a capacitance-coupling drive signal, said capacitance-coupling transistor selectively coupling said floating diffusion to said additional capacitance to share charge or isolating said floating diffusion from said additional capacitance dependent upon a digital state of said capacitance-coupling drive signal.