Patent ID: 8300130

Claim:
A method of driving a solid-state imaging device which includes photodiodes and vertical transfer units, the photodiodes being arranged in columns and rows, and each of the vertical transfer units being provided for a corresponding one of the columns of the photodiodes and including transfer electrodes, said method comprising: reading a signal charge from each of the photodiodes by setting, to a first electric potential, an electric potential of a predetermined reading electrode among reading electrodes that are included in the transfer electrodes, each of the reading electrodes being provided for reading the signal charge from a corresponding one of the photodiodes and for transferring the read signal charge in a column direction; and transferring, in the column direction, the read signal charge by applying, to each of the transfer electrodes, a driving pulse having a second electric potential and a third electric potential, the second electric potential being lower than the first electric potential, and the third electric potential being lower than the second electric potential, wherein in said reading, while the first electric potential is being applied to the predetermined reading electrode, (i) an electric potential of one of the transfer electrodes that is adjacent to the predetermined reading electrode is set to the second electric potential, and (ii) an electric potential of the other one of the transfer electrodes that is adjacent to the predetermined transfer electrode and an electric potential of a reading electrode that is included in the reading electrodes and that is other than the predetermined reading electrode are changed.