Patent ID: 7683956

Claim:
A solid-state imaging device comprising a plurality of vertical transfer units each of which is arranged corresponding to each column of pixels and is operable to vertically transfer charges read out from the pixels, the pixels being arranged two-dimensionally by rows and columns; a horizontal transfer unit operable to horizontally transfer the charges obtained from said vertical transfer units; and a driving unit operable to drive said vertical transfer units and said horizontal transfer unit, wherein, in a vertical final stage of said vertical transfer units, the transfer electrode structures in every m columns are the same, where m is an integer number equal to or more than 2, the vertical final stage being a vertical transfer stage located the closest to said horizontal transfer unit, in each vertical final stage of columns except one column of the m columns or of all columns of the m columns, there are transfer electrodes independent of the electrodes in the other columns in the m columns, and the independent transfer electrodes are driven independently to perform transfer processing from the corresponding vertical final stage to said horizontal transfer unit, the driving being independent from driving of the electrodes in the other columns in the m columns, and said driving unit is operable; to perform sequential vertical transfer driving, by which first packets and second packets are sequentially and vertically transferred within one horizontal transfer period, each of the first packets including a signal component to be used as an image signal and each of the second packets not including any signal component to be used as an image signal; to apply, in the sequential vertical transfer driving, respective transfer pulses to the transfer electrodes in the vertical transfer stage and transfer electrodes of said horizontal transfer unit, so that the first packets and the second packets are separated to be allocated into respective different horizontal transfer stages of said horizontal transfer unit; and to perform the sequential vertical transfer driving of the first packets and the second packets in the vertical final stage in one of the m columns so as to be different from that of an other column of the m columns.