Patent ID: 6847397

Claim:
A solid-state image sensor for separating colors of incident light at positions corresponding to apertures formed in a screen member, transforming color-separated light to electric signals representative of an image, and processing said electric signals to thereby output broadband signals, said solid-state image sensor comprising: an image pickup section including color separating means comprising, among a plurality of color filters each having a particular spectral characteristic for separating the colors of the light incident via the apertures, a color filter having a spectral characteristic of complementary colors; a photosensitive array comprising photosensitive cells, which photoelectrically transform the light passed through said color filter, and photosensitive cells adjoining said photosensitive cells, wherein said photosensitive cells are bidimensionally arranged while being shifted from each other in a vertical direction and/or a horizontal direction; electrodes so arranged as to go around the apertures formed in said photosensitive array for reading signals out of said photosensitive cells, and; transfer registers for sequentially transferring the signals read out via said electrodes in the horizontal direction or the vertical direction of said photosensitive array; an analog-to-digital converter for converting the signals output from said image pickup section to digital data; and a signal processing section for generating, assuming that positions on a plane, in which the digital data are arranged, void of the photosensitive cells due to a shifted arrangement of said photosensitive cells are virtual photosensitive cells, pixel data of any one of three primary colors red (R), green (G) and blue (B) for interpolating said virtual photosensitive cells or the actually present photosensitive cells on the basis of pixel data that include a plurality of complementary colors and are read out of said actually present photosensitive cells, two lines at a time, three lines at a time, or three lines at a time with a line-by-line shift in accordance with said color filter, and broadening a frequency band of pixel data at said actually present photosensitive cells and said virtual photosensitive cells on the basis of said pixel data interpolated.