The TC244A is a frame-transfer charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensor designed for use in single-chip color NTSC TV applications. The device is intended to replace the 1/2-inch vidicon tube in applications requiring small size, high reliability, and low cost. The image-sensing area of the TC244A is configured into 242 lines with 786 elements in each line. Twenty-nine elements are provided in each line for dark reference. The blooming-protection feature of the sensor is based on recombining excess charge with charge of opposite polarity in the substrate. This antiblooming is activated by supplying clocking pulses to the antiblooming gate, which is an integral part of each image-sensing element. The sensor is designed to operate in an interlace mode, electronically displacing the image-sensing elements by one-half of a vertical line during the charge integration period in alternate fields, effectively increasing the vertical resolution and minimizing aliasing. The single-chip color-sensing capability of the TC244A is achieved by processing on striped-color filter with RGB organization. The stripes are precisely aligned to the sensing elements, and the signal-charge columns are multiplexed during the readout into three separate registers with three separate outputs corresponding to each individual color.