Image sensor and driving method for the same

Claim 1

An image sensor, comprising: a plurality of light receiving pixel elements, each of said plurality of light receiving elements including a light receiving face for photo-electrically converting incident light into a signal charge, and for accumulating said signal charge; a plurality of signal charge transfer gates, each of said plurality of signal charge transfer gates being formed without overlapping with the light receiving face of each of said plurality of light receiving pixel elements, for reading out the signal charge accumulated in each of said plurality of light receiving pixel elements; a light receiving area made of a plurality of unit cells, each unit cell of said plurality of unit cells comprising one of said plurality of light receiving pixel elements and one of said plurality of signal charge transfer gates, said plurality of unit cells being disposed in matrix form at an equal spatial periodic distance; outputting means connected to said plurality of signal charge transfer gates for sequentially outputting the signal charges read from the said plurality of unit cells in a time series relationship; a plurality of groups of at least two adjacent, non-overlapping pixel electrodes, each of said plurality of groups being disposed above a respective light receiving face of each of said plurality of light receiving pixel elements at an equal spatial periodic distance, said spatial periodic distance of said pixel electrodes being shorter than a spatial periodic distance between said plurality of unit cells, said adjacent, non-overlapping pixel electrodes having an insulating film interposed therebetween; and application voltage applying means for applying predetermined voltages of different phases to each of said plurality of groups of pixel electrodes.

Claim 8

A method of driving an image sensor by applying a series of driving pulses to a plurality of pixel electrodes disposed on a plurality of light receiving pixel elements, wherein said method comprises the steps of: providing more than one pixel electrode above each light receiving pixel element at an equal spatial periodic distance, said spatial periodic distance of said pixel electrodes being shorter than a spatial periodic distance between said plurality of light receiving pixel elements, said pixel electrodes being divided in at least one group, each of said light receiving pixel elements photo-electrically converting incident light into a signal charge and accumulating the signal charge; generating a plurality of series of driving pulses of different voltages; applying each of said series of driving pulses to said at least one group of pixel electrodes; and sequentially reading out said signal charge from each of said light receiving pixel elements using charge transfer elements which are separate from said pixel electrodes.

Claim 9

A method of driving an image sensor by applying a series of driving pulses to a plurality of pixel electrodes disposed on a plurality of light receiving pixel elements, wherein said method comprises the steps of: providing more than one pixel electrode above each light receiving pixel element at an equal spatial periodic distance, said spatial periodic distance of said pixel electrodes being shorter than a spatial periodic distance between said plurality of light receiving pixel elements, said pixel electrodes being divided in at least one group, each of said light receiving pixel elements photo-electrically converting incident light into a signal charge and accumulating the signal charge; generating a plurality of series of driving pulses of different voltages; applying each of said series of driving pulses to said at least one group of pixel electrodes; and sequentially reading out said signal charge from each of said light receiving pixel elements using charge transfer elements which are separate from said pixel electrodes.