Patent ID: 7952636

Claim:
A method for driving a solid-state imaging device wherein the solid-state imaging device includes a light receiving section in which a plurality of photoelectric conversion elements are arranged in a row and column directions on a semiconductor substrate, a plurality of vertical charge transfer sections that extend along the column direction of the photoelectric conversion elements, are arranged adjacent to the photoelectric conversion elements, read signal charges which are generated in the photoelectric conversion elements, and transfer the signal charges in a vertical direction, a horizontal charge transfer section that transfers in a horizontal direction the signal charges, which are transferred from the vertical charge transfer sections, and line memory that is disposed between the vertical charge transfer sections and the horizontal charge transfer section, and in each column, of the photoelectric conversion elements, the photoelectric conversion element, which detects one color component corresponding to each column, and the photoelectric conversion element, which detects another color element corresponding to each column, are alternately arranged along the column direction, the method comprising: sequentially repeating, along the column direction, (i) reading, into the vertical charge transfer sections, the signal charges of the photoelectric conversion elements corresponding to two rows and (ii) not reading, into the vertical charge transfer sections, the signal charges of the photoelectric conversion elements corresponding to one row, to separately arrange blank charge packets in the vertical charge transfer sections, wherein each of the blank charge packets corresponds to one row; transferring the signal charges in the vertical charge transfer sections by a distance corresponding to three rows; reading, into each blank charge packet, the signal charge, which remains in the photoelectric conversion element and has the same color component as the signal charges accumulated in charge packets in front and rear of each blank charge packet, to obtain a set of three consecutive signal charges having the same color component; adding the obtained three consecutive signal charges of each set to each other in the line memory or in the horizontal charge transfer section; and transferring the added signal charges.