Solid-state imaging apparatus and method for driving the same

Abstract

To provide a solid-state imaging apparatus which is capable of preventing electric charge from being injected from a semiconductor substrate while electric charge is being accumulated into photodiodes. The solid-state imaging apparatus includes a solid-state imaging device and a driving pulse control unit. The solid-state imaging device includes: a semiconductor substrate, photodiodes which are two-dimensionally formed on the semiconductor substrate, and vertical Charge-coupled devices (CCDs) having at least one arranged read-out gate and non-read-out gate for each of the photodiodes, the read-out gate being for reading out accumulated electric charge from the associated photodiode, and the non-read-out gate being not for reading out accumulated electric charge from the associated photodiode. The driving pulse control unit applies driving pulses sequentially to the respective read-out gates in order to change the read-out gates from stand-by LOW-voltage states to MIDDLE-voltage states, and apply a driving pulse for maintaining a LOW-voltage state of at least one of non-read-out gates adjacent to a last read-out gate in the order of the change among the non-read-out gates, during the change starting with a first read-out gate and ending with the last read-out gate.