Solid-state electronic imaging device and method of controlling opertion thereof

Claim 1

A solid-state electronic imaging device comprising: a lot of photoelectric conversion elements arranged in the column direction and the row direction; a plurality of vertical transfer paths for transferring signal charges respectively accumulated in said photoelectric conversion elements in the vertical direction; one or more transfer gates for respectively shifting the signal charges accumulated in the photoelectric conversion elements to said vertical transfer paths upon receipt of transfer gate pulses; a horizontal transfer path for horizontally transferring the signal charges transferred from the vertical transfer paths; color filters respectively formed on the photoelectric conversion elements and arranged such that the order of color signal components respectively represented by the signal charges substantially corresponding to one row which are inputted to the horizontal transfer path in reading out all pixels is a repetition of a red signal component, a green signal component, a blue signal component, and a green signal component, and the respective timings at which the red signal component and the blue signal component are outputted in odd rows are reverse to those in even rows; and a readout control that applies the transfer gate pulses to said transfer gates such that the order of color signal components respectively represented by the signal charges substantially corresponding to one row which are inputted to the horizontal transfer path is a repetition of a red signal component, a green signal component, a blue signal component, and a green signal component in every other row, and the respective timings at which the red signal component and the blue signal component are outputted in odd rows are reverse to those in even rows; and wherein said horizontal transfer path said horizontal transfer path is provided with a plurality of horizontal transfer electrodes; said solid-state electronic imaging device further comprising a mix control that applies horizontal transfer pulses to plural horizontal transfer electrodes of said horizontal transfer electrodes and changes the horizontal transfer electrodes to which said horizontal transfer pulses are applied in order to control mixing of the signal charges and an amount of the mixed signal charges.

Claim 9

A method of controlling signals from a photoelectric conversion element array, comprising: arranging a plurality of photoelectric conversion elements, each photoelectric conversion element producing a color signal, in adjacent offset rows and columns, such that each adjacent row and column is comprised of either photoelectric conversion elements producing only a green color signal or photoelectric conversion elements that produce in an alternating sequence, a red color signal and a blue color signal; controlling a readout of the color signals from the photoelectric conversion elements using transfer gate pulses associated with transfer gates for shifting the color signals to a vertical transfer path adjacent to each column and the transfer of the color signals from the vertical transfer path to a horizontal transfer path; mixing the green color signals, red color signals and blue color signals from adjacent rows so that the order of the color signals in the horizontal transfer path is a repetition of a red color signal, green color signal, blue color signal and green color signal in every other row, and the respective timings at which the red signal component and blue signal component are outputted in odd rows are reverse to those in even rows, wherein said horizontal transfer path is provided with a plurality of horizontal transfer electrodes; and applying horizontal transfer pulses to plural horizontal transfer electrodes of said horizontal transfer electrodes and changing the horizontal transfer electrodes to which said horizontal transfer pulses are applied in order to control the mixing of the signal charges and an amount of the mixed signal charges.

Claim 10

A method of controlling signals from a photoelectric conversion element array, comprising: arranging a plurality of photoelectric conversion elements, each photoelectric conversion element producing a color signal, in adjacent offset rows and columns, such that each adjacent row and column is comprised of either photoelectric conversion elements producing only a green color signal or photoelectric conversion elements that produce in an alternating sequence, a red color signal and a blue color signal; controlling a readout of the color signals from the photoelectric conversion elements using transfer gate pulses associated with transfer gates for shifting the color signals to a vertical transfer path adjacent to each column and the transfer of the color signals from the vertical transfer path to a horizontal transfer path; mixing the green color signals, red color signals and blue color signals from adjacent rows so that the order of the color signals in the horizontal transfer path is a repetition of a red color signal, green color signal, blue color signal and green color signal in every other row, and the respective timings at which the red signal component and blue signal component are outputted in odd rows are reverse to those in even rows, wherein said horizontal transfer path is provided with a plurality of horizontal transfer electrodes; and applying horizontal transfer pulses to plural horizontal transfer electrodes of said horizontal transfer electrodes and changing the horizontal transfer electrodes to which said horizontal transfer pulses are applied in order to control the mixing of the signal charges and an amount of the mixed signal charges.