Patent ID: 8525242

Claim:
A method of driving a solid-state image pickup device, said driving method comprising: providing a pixel region on a substrate, said pixel region including (a) a sensor region for photoelectrically converting incident light, (b) a vertical charge transfer region formed on one side of said sensor region with a readout region interposed between said sensor region and said vertical charge transfer region, (c) a channel stop region formed on a side of said sensor region opposite said vertical charge transfer region, (d) a vertical transfer electrode on said vertical charge transfer region with an insulating film interposed between said vertical transfer electrode and said vertical charge transfer region, said vertical transfer electrode being formed above said vertical charge transfer region such that a width of said vertical transfer electrode and a channel width of said vertical charge transfer region are substantially equal to each other, (e) a light shielding electrode over said vertical transfer electrode and having (i) a first base extension portion that extends over said channel stop region from one side of said vertical transfer electrode, said first base extension portion being in contact with the insulating film, said contact of said first base extension portion and the insulating film occurring over said entire channel stop region such that a portion of the insulating film is abutted by both the first base extension portion and the entire channel stop region in a thickness direction, and (ii) a second base extension portion that extends over said sensor region from an opposite side of said vertical transfer electrode such that the second base extension portion is in contact with the insulating film and extends across the readout region into the sensor region to shield a portion of said sensor region from light, and (f) an interlayer insulating film interposed between said light shielding electrode and said vertical transfer electrode, the interlayer insulating film not overlapping the channel stop region, the interlayer insulating film covering top and side surfaces of the vertical transfer electrode while not overlapping the readout region in the thickness direction; and applying an amplitude range of driving voltage of said solid-state image pickup device with a low voltage side of said amplitude range of a negative voltage and a high voltage side of said amplitude range of a positive voltage.