Color CCD solid-state image pickup device

Claim 2

A color CCD solid-state image pickup device comprising pixels arrayed in a matrix, vertical shift registers provided in correspondence with vertical columns of pixels for transferring signal charges from said pixels in the vertical direction and a color filter array of a kind such that it is not possible to mix pixels adjacent in the column direction, wherein: even rows and odd rows of said pixels arrayed in a matrix respectively have the same color filter arrays; and signal charges of light-receiving parts in pixels of a Kth row, K being a positive integer, and signal charges of light-receiving parts in pixels of either of the K±2th rows are mixed and vertically transferred in said vertical shift registers.

Claim 3

A color CCD solid-state image pickup device comprising pixels arrayed in a matrix, vertical shift registers provided in correspondence with vertical columns of pixels for transferring signal charges from said pixels in the vertical direction and a color filter array of a kind such that it is not possible to mix pixels adjacent in the column direction, wherein: even rows and odd rows of said pixels arrayed in a matrix respectively have the same color filter arrays; signal charges of an even row and signal charges of an even row two rows thereabove or therebelow are mixed in the vertical registers and these two rows are thereby compressed into one; and signal charges of an odd row and signal charges of an odd row two rows thereabove or therebelow are mixed in the vertical registers and these two rows are thereby compressed into one.

Claim 4

A color CCD solid-state image pickup device comprising pixels arrayed in a matrix, vertical shift registers provided in correspondence with vertical columns of pixels for transferring signal charges from said pixels in the vertical direction and a color filter array of a kind such that it is not possible to mix pixels adjacent in the column direction, wherein: even rows and odd rows of said pixels arrayed in a matrix respectively have the same color filter arrays; signal charges of an even row and signal charges of an even row two rows thereabove or therebelow are mixed in the vertical registers and these two rows are thereby compressed into one; and signal charges of an odd row and signal charges of an odd row two rows thereabove or therebelow are mixed in the vertical registers and these two rows are thereby compressed into one.

Claim 5

A color CCD solid-state image pickup device according to claim 2 wherein signal charges of the even rows and signal charges of the odd rows are outputted independently.

Claim 6

A color CCD solid-state image pickup device according to claim 3, wherein the signal charges of an even row and the signal charges of an even row two rows thereabove or therebelow are mixed by being transferred in passing through he odd row located therebetween in the vertical shift registers while the signal charges of the odd row are held out of the vertical registers, and then, the signal charges of an odd row and the signal charges of an odd row two rows thereabove or therebelow are mixed.

Claim 7

A color CCD solid-state image pickup device according to claim 2, wherein the number of the pixels is about 1,000 in the vertical direction of the device.

Claim 8

A color CCD solid-state image pickup device according to claim 2, wherein each row of the pixels has the same color filter arrangement as a row located two rows below or above.

Claim 9

A color CCD solid-state image pickup device according to claim 2, wherein said even rows has green filters and said odd row has red and blue filters.

Claim 10

A color CCD solid-state image pickup device according to claim 2, wherein the signal charges of said even rows are transferred horizontally by a first horizontal shift register and the signal charges of said odd rows are transferred horizontally by a second horizontal shift register.

Claim 11

A color CCD solid-state image pickup device according to claim 2, wherein said signal charges of each pixel are read out of a light-receiving element of each pixel in response to a pulse signal for reading-out.