CCD IMAGE PICKUP DEVICE WITH TWOFOLD FRAME STORAGE PORTION AND METHOD FOR USING THE DEVICE

摘要

A compact image pickup device with high sensitivity is provided, which is suitable for a spatial information detecting apparatus. The image pickup device has a plurality of image pickup units (Ul) arranged on a semiconductor substrate. Each of the image pickup units (Ul) has a light receiving array of photoelectric conversion elements (Px) for generating electric charges corresponding to a received-light amount, a transfer array (Yl) of charge transfer elements (Py), an accumulation array (Zl) of charge accumulation elements each having a greater charge storage capacity than a saturation charge amount of the photoelectric conversion element, and a charge-amount adjusting portion (D4) configured to determine an amount of undesired electric charges to be separated from the electric charges generated by each of the photoelectric conversion elements. The transfer array and the light receiving array (Xl) are arranged in a line in a vertical direction (Dv). The accumulation array (Pz) is disposed adjacent to the transfer array (Py) in a horizontal direction (Dh).