Patent ID: 7132705

Claim:
A solid state imaging device comprising: a substrate; a photoelectric conversion element formed in the substrate and generating photo-generated charges corresponding to incident light; an accumulation well accumulating the photo-generated charges; a modulation well storing the photo-generated charges transferred from the accumulation well; a modulation transistor having a channel threshold voltage controlled by the photo-generated charges stored in the modulation well, and that outputs a pixel signal corresponding to the photo-generated charges; a transfer control element changing a potential barrier of a transfer channel between the accumulation well and the modulation well so as to control transfer of the photo-generated charges, a control end of the transfer control element being common-coupled to a control end of the modulation transistor; and an unwanted charges discharge control element controlling a potential barrier of an unwanted charges discharge channel coupled to the accumulation well, the unwanted charges discharge control element discharging the photo-generated charges that overflow from the accumulation well through the unwanted charges discharge channel during a period other than a transfer period when the photo-generated charges are transferred from the accumulation well to the modulation well by the transfer control element.