Micron claims high-definition sensor breakthrough
Micron, the imaging and memory chip maker, has announced a breakthrough in enabling high-definition video and pictures on smaller, faster chips. The technology being used is CMOS - complementary metal-oxide semiconductor - which has been long associated with relatively low quality images compared to those of charge-coupled devices or CCDs preferred in digital cameras and camcorders.
But Micron said it had produced the world’s smallest 8-megapixel image sensor, capable of taking 10 pictures a second at that resolution and 30 pictures at a 2 megapixel resolution.
“Micron has done really really well in the mobile phone market with CMOS, but then you have the digital still cameras dominated 90 per cent by Japanese CCDs,” said Chris Chute digital imaging analyst with the IDC research firm.
