A method of operating a line imaging device including receiving a first clock signal indicative of a system timing signal in the line imaging device, generating a second clock signal based on the first clock signal and being unmodulated where the second clock signal being used for driving the imager timing, data sampling and digitizing operations of the line imaging device, and generating a third clock signal based on the first clock signal and being modulated using a spreading waveform where the third clock signal being a spread spectrum clock signal and being used to drive the data transfer operation of the line imaging device.