Patent ID: 7623162

Claim:
A signal processing device comprising: a solid-state image pickup element having: a pixel part including pixels arrayed in a matrix of lines and columns, the pixel part including an effective pixel area to be irradiated with light, and a vertical light-shielded pixel area where irradiation of light is shielded, a vertical scanning circuit which controls control electrodes of pixels arranged in a line and connected by a vertical selection line, a horizontal scanning circuit which controls control electrodes of vertical signal lines to output pixel signals to horizontal signal lines, and an output circuit which outputs pixel signals from the horizontal signal lines; means for clamping, to a predetermined reference value, black level values of pixel signals from the vertical light-shielded pixel area and the effective pixel area, which are outputted from the output circuit; means for determining a threshold value, the threshold value defining the bounds of a range of acceptable black level values that fall between the predetermined reference value and the threshold value, the threshold value being defined by calculating a standard deviation of random noise from the vertical light-shielded pixel area and performing a multiplication operation on the standard deviation to find the threshold value; means for determining whether pixel signals from the vertical light-shielded pixel area that have the black level value clamped to the reference value exceed the threshold value; means for detecting a defective pixel among pixels arranged in the vertical light-shielded pixel area when a pixel signal exceeds the threshold value; and means for correcting the detected defective pixel by adjusting the pixel signal level of the detected defective pixel to equal the threshold value.