Aptina Imaging now can assemble image sensors, lenses, and other components into a camera phone package. The integration happens earlier in the manufacturing process, when the sensors are still part of their silicon wafer, than is typical today.
(Credit: Micron)
Memory chipmaker Micron Technology has launched its image-sensor business as a more independent division called Aptina Imaging, a move the company believes will improve its flexibility and business potential.
The new subsidiary is based in San Jose, Calif., a Silicon Valley location that's a long way from Micron's Boise, Idaho, headquarters. It will employ several hundred of Micron's 19,000 employees, Micron said.
"We need the additional flexibility and identity to be able to grow the way the markets we see are growing," said Shane Thomas, director of product marketing for the imaging business.
For example, Aptina will have a dedicated sales force and get new options for finding manufacturing capacity to build its products, Thomas said. "We're able to respond more quickly to our customers' needs."
Thomas wouldn't comment on two interesting business possibilities, however: whether Micron might be packaging Aptina for sale or spin-off and whether Aptina might use other fabrication facilities besides Micron's.
"We're always open to exploring other options for our business, but we're not commenting beyond that," spokeswoman Kirstin Bordner said about the possibility of a spin-off.
Using other fabrication facilities could mean Aptina wouldn't have to compete with other Micron manufacturing priorities, and other companies have expertise. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, for example, builds sensors for Kodak and made a cutting-edge sensor prototype developed by Stanford researcher Keith Fife.
New products, but are smaller pixels better?
Aptina also has several new product developments for its image sensors.
Most significant in the near term is a refinement of the company's existing process for sensors whose pixels measure 1.75 microns (millionths of a meter) across. The new version improves quantum efficiency (the ability to detect small amounts of light), fill factor (the amount of the pixel that's devoted to capturing light rather than electronics), and dark current (electronic noise that occurs even when there's no actual light to generate a signal in the sensor).
Aptina Imaging's new logo
(Credit: Micron)And Aptina has a new chip using the process, a 9-megapixel model of the "1/2.3" format that's very common in compact cameras.
The company also said its first chips using 1.4-micron pixels will be in production this summer. And it's begun making engineering samples of chips with 1.2-micron pixels that will be on sale in 2009.
Making pixels smaller means more can be put on a single chip of a fixed size, or more smaller, cheaper chips can be used to reach a certain megapixel count. But there's a possible penalty: smaller pixels can produce more image noise. Bucking the trend, Nikon's new D3 SLR has comparatively gargantuan 8.45-micron pixels and works well in low-light conditions even at a sensitivity setting of ISO 6,400.
Thomas said Micron is making sure image quality is level or better as it goes to smaller pixels, though.
"We're going to provide 1.4-micron pixels that are equal to if not greater (in quality) to 1.75 micron pixels. And 1.75 is better than 2.2," Thomas said. "Clearly, if you just shrink the pixel and you don't make enhancements to the other stuff around it, you're not going to get what you want. We're absolutely focusing on more than just shrinking the pixel."
Aptina Imaging's camera module, shown in front, back, and side views to the upper left, measures 4x4x.2.5mm. A conventional phone camera module is at the lower right.
(Credit: Micron)
Teensy cell phone cameras--now prepackaged
On the mobile-phone side of the business, Aptina announced a significant development, a much greater degree of integration that means the manufacturing fab will produce not just image sensors but full-fledged camera modules. Lenses and other components are attached directly to the silicon wafer, and mobile-phone manufacturers can buy the whole module instead of just the sensor from one company and other components from another.
The approach is reminiscent of buying processed food rather than raw ingredients in grocery stories, a practice that can be convenient for buyers but that also boosts profit margins for suppliers. Thomas preferred to express the idea as "adding more value to the complete value chain."
The camera package measures just 4x4x2.5mm--a significant notch smaller than conventional phone packages. Aptina hopes this means it will be adopted in the hundreds of millions of low-end phones sold today that still don't have cameras.
The sensor itself has VGA resolution--640x480 pixels--and its dimensions are the teensy 1/11 format, Thomas said. The camera modules will be shipping in samples in the second quarter and will be in production "shortly thereafter," Thomas said.
LAS VEGAS--The camera companies keep telling me the megapixel race isn't over, but I'd like to see if you have a different opinion.
I'm one of those people who doesn't believe more megapixels necessarily makes for a better digital camera. Sure, at least theoretically having more megapixels permits larger prints and tighter cropping, but it also can impose penalties such as image noise, lousy low-light performance, smeary noise-reduction artifacts, and other drawbacks. There's a trade-off here.
News.com Poll
So it's time to vote now for what you'd benefit from more in a camera: more megapixels or higher sensitivity. Click the button to register your opinion and explain yourself below in the TalkBack section if you want to make your case in more detail.
Camera makers seem unable to resist the temptation of higher megapixels in compact cameras right now, marching on past 10 megapixels to 12. But in the SLR domain, where buyers are more sophisticated and larger image sensors provide more leeway, there are some interesting trade-offs going on.
Most interesting to me right now is Canon's approach. Its entry-level EOS Rebel XSi is a 12-megapixel model, but one step up the ladder is the 10-megapixel 40D. The Rebel's XSi top sensitivity is ISO 1,600, but the 40D offers 3,200.
Canon and Nikon provide another contrast with their top-end models. Canon's $8,000 1Ds Mark III offers 21 megapixels, while Nikon's $5,000 D3 has 12 megapixels. The 1Ds Mark III reaches ISO 6,400, but the D3 can go to 25,600 in a pinch. (Although these are top-end models, Canon's $4,500 1D Mark III, with 10.7 megapixels and maximum ISO of 6,400 but a smaller image sensor than the D3, is probably a more direct comparison with the D3.)
Now that we're beyond the 2-megapixel era, I'd prefer better sensitivity over a couple extra megapixels. I find myself much more constrained by dim conditions or fast-moving subjects such as children and wildlife than by insufficient pixel quantity. I've blown up my 8-megapixel camera's images to 20x30-inch prints without trouble.
Take a pixel peep at the cropped photo I took with the Nikon D3 of a BMW racing by on a Las Vegas track at about 80 miles per hour. The picture won't be gracing the pages of Sports Illustrated, but using ISO 6,400 let me freeze the action with a 1/8000 shutter speed, and the full image looks fine.
I recognize it's not a simple case that sensitivity is better than megapixels, and clearly some people may have different priorities. If you're in controlled studio conditions and shooting stock photos, a market that sometimes pays by the pixel, more pixels is probably helpful. And lacking a mammoth telephoto lens, I do sometimes wish I had more pixels left over after I crop heavily to better show a bird.
This is a 100 percent crop of a photo I shot with a 12-megapixel Nikon D3 at a shutter speed of 1/8000 sec., f/7.1, at ISO 6,400, with Nikon's new 24-70mm lens. Sure, there's lots of noise and the colors aren't as vivid as they could be, but ISO 6,400 will let you freeze the action of a BMW racing past at about 80 miles per hour (which means the top edge of the wheel is going about 160mph). This crop is from the in-camera JPEG.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)Optical resolution is another issue. Lower-end and sometimes even expensive lenses can lack sufficient sharpness to really take advantage of all the pixels on the sensor.
Gratuitous megapixels have other drawbacks besides noise. Image processors that convert sensor data into a JPEG have to do more work--especially with the double whammy that they often must use more sophisticated but power-hungry noise-reduction work.
Perhaps most obviously, more megapixels means memory cards and hard drives fill up faster. Sure, storage is cheap, but what if what you're storing is bulkier but no better?
There are signs that the industry is moving beyond its megapixels-uber-alles worldview. When Panasonic unveiled a number of compact cameras at a press conference Tuesday at the Photo Marketing Association trade show here, the company took pains to emphasize all the attributes besides megapixels it hopes to use to sell cameras.
You know where I stand on the issue. Let's hear your voice.
Update 8:30 a.m. PST: Here's my response to the issue of sensor size raised in some TalkBack comments.
Increasing the sensor size while holding megapixels constant can let manufacturers improve sensitivity, too. However, that's another trade-off because larger sensors cost a lot more to manufacture. I chose the 12 megapixel/ISO 1,600 vs. 10 megapixel/ISO 3,200 comparison because it's a real reflection of choices Canon had in its Rebel XSi vs. 40D.
It's not practical for Canon to fix the sensitivity problem simply by dumping smaller APS-C sensors and moving to full-frame. The cheapest full-frame camera today, Canon's 5D, costs at least $2,100 with no lens, which is hardly competitive in the entry-level SLR market.
It's easier to vary sensor size in compact cameras where the built-in lens can be matched to the sensor. (Indeed, Canon increased the sensor size slightly from the PowerShot G7 generation to the G9.) But the same cost trade-off applies there too, and compact camera buyers are even more price-sensitive.
Seitz's 160-megapixel 6x17 Digital camera
(Credit: Seitz)Got $45,600 burning a hole in your pocket? Try out Seitz Phototechnik's 160-megapixel 6x17 Digital camera. And save a bit more of your allowance for a lens, too.
The mammoth device is able to take an image measuring 60x170mm, a big notch up from high-end SLRs with a 24x36mm frame. It's got huge handgrips on either side that cry out to be grasped, but it's 18 inches wide and weighs 10 pounds, so it looks either like a great workout or tripod material to me.
It can be purchased with a tablet PC to operate it, too. That's doubtless handy, because a single high-resolution file is 307MB in raw format, the company said.
The 6x17 Digital employs a digital scanning back made by Dalsa. Scanning cameras employ a linear light sensor detector similar to that used in flatbed scanners; it moves across the field of view to take the photo rather than using a two-dimensional sensor that captures the entire scene simultaneously. It's a good way to get high resolution, but it comes at a cost: it takes a single second to take a full-resolution 7,500x21,500-pixel image.
(Via Gearfuse.)
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