Items tagged with CMOS
Intel insists it's on track to ship 10-nanometer processors in volume by the end of next year, but what could be even more exciting is what lies beyond the confines of CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) technology. In a newly published research paper in Nature, researchers from Intel, the University of California Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory describe a magneto-electric spin-orbit (MESO) logic device, invented by Intel. MESO could be the thing that replaces CMOS some day. According to Intel, MESO devices can potentially lower voltage requirements five-fold and reduce energy requirements by 10-30 times when combined with ultra-low sleep state power, compared...
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After developing a 120-megapixel CMOS sensor five years ago, Canon is just now getting around to commercializing it in a forthcoming digital SLR (pricing and availability still unknown). Wondering where Canon goes from there? Wonder no more, as Canon announced this week that it's developed a 250-megapixel CMOS sensor.That works out to a resolution of 19,580 x 12,600, if you can wrap your head around that. When installed in a prototype camera, the newly developed sensor was able to snap photos of the side of an airplane flying at a distance of 18 kilometers (around 11.18 miles) away, with the lettering on the plane distinguishable in the shots.It can also shoot video. The resulting resolution...
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Hasselblad is a something of a legendary name in photography and has been making medium-format cameras for decades, and now the company has made another step forward in innovation with the impending Hasselblad H5D-50c. The 50MP medium-format H5D-50c is similar to the company’s existing H5D-50 model except that it has a CMOS sensor instead of a CCD, which Hasselblad claims is a world’s first. Hasselblad says that the new sensor will enable faster capture rates, longer shutter speeds, and better ISO performance, as well as “greatly improved” Live Video in Phocus and multi-shot capabilities. "We believe this will provide a highly compelling option for professional photographers...
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The days when camera phones were novelties that shot blurry, low-res photos seem so far away that it’s ridiculous. Innovation in that space has exploded, and Samsung is pushing the envelope even more with a new advanced pixel technology for CMOS sensors in cameras called ISOCELL. ISOCELL is designed to increase the light sensitivity of the CMOS sensor and result in better color fidelity in low-light situations. More technically, “ISOCELL technology forms a physical barrier between neighboring pixels – isolating the pixel. This isolation enables more photons to be collected from the micro-lens and absorbed into the correct pixel’s photodiode minimizing undesired electrical...
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The Leap Motion controller has nothing on this thing; Haptix is a project that, simply put, is designed to turn any surface into a multitouch surface. (Get it? Haptics.) Ostensibly, this allows for input in more ways, and it opens up more possibilities for user customization. The Haptix team sees the device as combining the traditional mouse/keyboard input method with touch and getting the best of both worlds. The device itself is a small, silver bar that clips onto or rests on just about anything. It “reads” your finger movements and inputs accordingly. It can be used for everything from computers to tablets to TVs. Even more impressive is that it can be used for 3D multitouch, so...
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Adventurers, take note: There’s another option for a mounted or handheld HD video camera, and this one’s from Garmin. The company announced the Garmin VIRB and VIRB Elite, a pair of cameras that are waterproof, rugged, and can shoot in 1080p HD. The cameras boast a 16MP CMOS image processor, 1.4-inch Chroma color display, a 3-hour 2000mAh rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and the ability to capture photo bursts and time lapse shots in addition to video. You can control them with another Garmin device thanks to ANT+ wireless connectivity, and both cameras come with free VIRB Edit desktop software. The VIRB Elite adds a GPS accelerometer and altimeter as well as WiFi connectivity for...
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Canon Announced the Canon EOS 70D, promising that the DSLR will offer “instant and precise” focusing in both still images and video thanks to the Dual Pixel CMOS autofocus feature and phase-detection AF. Canon also says the camera can shoot video near the quality of a camcorder, in 1080p HD at 30 FPS. The EOS 70D features a 20.2 megapixel APS-C Canon CMOS sensor and a DIGIC 5+ Image Processor and an ISO range of 100-12800, with the ability to snap sharp images even in low light. It can handle SD/SDHC/SDXC and Ultra High Speed cards. There’s also a stereo microphone with manual audio level adjustment that features an attenuator to prevent clipping, and Canon’s Stepping...
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If you often find yourself shooting video in the dark, you'll be happy to know that Canon has developed a high-sensitivity 35mm full-frame CMOS sensor designed exclusively for video recording. According to Canon, the new sensor is able to capture Full HD video in exceptionally low-light environments. That's especially great news for budding astronomers, as Canon says the sensor can capture clear video of even faint stars. The CMOS sensor features pixels measuring 19 microns square in size. To put that into perspective, it's more than 7.5-times the surface area of the pixels on the CMOS sensor inside Canon's top-shelf EOS-1D X and other DSLR cameras. Both the pixels and readout circuitry employ...
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Image sensors were important a decade ago. Today, their importance can't be stated enough. Every smartphone on the market is judged on its camera, and some phones (like the iPhone 4S and the Nokia 808 PureView) highlight the camera over most other features. This week, Sony announced that it plans to invest in Sony Semiconductor Corporation's Nagasaki Technology Center from the first half of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013 through the first half of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014. Why? Simple, to increase the production capacity for stacked CMOS image sensors. Sony has become a major player in the camera realm, from mirrorless options to DSLRs to components for cameraphones. The company...
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Sony may be most likely to be associated with their VAIO notebooks and slimmer-than-slim HDTVs, but the company's camera modules are pretty stellar. The NEX line of mirrorless cameras are giving everyone else in that market a run for their money, and now the company is unveiling a next-gen back-illuminated CMOS image sensor that's more capable of capturing more precise imagery in the same size form factor as before. This image sensor layers the pixel section containing formations of back-illuminated structure pixels onto chips containing the circuit section for signal processing, which is in place of supporting substrates for conventional back-illuminated CMOS image sensors. This structure achieves...
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Every so often, we see a camera module that comes out looking so impressive, the immediate thought goes to which DSLR it'll hit next. And then, you realize it's small than a thumb-tack. Sharp has just introduced one of those, calling their newest the industry's thinnest CMOS camera module with optical image stabilization. It's designed for use with smartphones, and it's a 12.1MP, 1/3.2" module that measures just 5.47mm high. The new RJ63YC100 is intended for use in mobile devices such as smartphones. Sample shipments will begin from December 2, 2011. The new module's thin profile has been developed in response to the demand for portable mobile devices with ever more slender designs. The module...
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Samsung announced its new NX10 hybrid DSLR which attempts to give you all of the image quality of a full-fledged DSLR in a more compact form. This 14.6 megapixel camera has an APS-C-sized CMOS sensor and a 3-inch AMOLED display that promises lower power consumption, a wider range of viewing angles, and better contrast than LCD technology. The camera can also record 720p H.264-encoded video. Because the camera eliminates the mirror box to save space, you must use the electronic viewfinder to frame your images. The NX10 uses the new NX lens mounting system. The NX10 is set to make an appearance at CES and will be available for purchase sometime in the spring. SAMSUNG UNVEILS THE NEXT GENERATION...
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Samsung announced the S5K4EA, a new quarter-inch optical format, 5-megapixel system-on-chip (SoC) image sensor that will bring high quality digital still camera functionality to high-end mobile phones. This imager combines a CMOS image sensor with an image signal processor to give mobile handset designers a cost effective and size efficient solution. The S5K4EA SoC imager offers adaptive dynamic range expansion capabilities to help brighten shadowed areas of a picture and intensify brighter regions. The imager also has an anti-shake control feature and the ability to process 1080p resolution images at 30 frames-per-second for high quality video capture. Although it will be a little while before...
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Didn't you hate when your college calculus processor insisted that an answer had to be "exact," and that "close enough" just wouldn't cut it? Clearly, you should have attended Rice University or Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. A team of researchers from both institutions have come together in order to create a revolutionary type of computing that thrives on random errors. You read correctly: this stuff actually benefits from impreciseness.Dubbed PCMOS (for probabilistic CMOS), this technology has been used in a microchip that requires 30 times less electricity while running seven times faster than today's best technology. The crew unveiled their findings at the International Solid-State...
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