Patent ID: 8519456

Claim:
A solid-state image pickup device, comprising: a semiconductor substrate; and a plurality of pixel circuits formed on said semiconductor substrate, said plurality of pixel circuits distributed horizontally on said semiconductor substrate, wherein, (a) each of said plurality of pixel circuits formed on said semiconductor substrate includes: (1) a photoelectric conversion element that generates electric charges in response to incident light, (2) a first buried gate electrode formed horizontally adjacent to said photoelectric conversion element, (3) a second buried gate electrode formed horizontally spaced apart from each of said photoelectric conversion element and said first buried gate electrode, (4) a first diffusion layer formed between said first buried gate electrode and said second buried gate electrode, and (5) a second diffusion layer formed between said first buried gate electrode and said second buried gate electrode but vertically spaced apart from said first diffusion layer and horizontally overlapping said first diffusion layer; and (b) electric charges accumulated in said photodiode conversion element are transferred to said second diffusion layer through said first diffusion layer.