Canon Develops World’s Largest CMOS Image Sensor
anon Inc. announced today that it has successfully developed the world’s largest CMOS image sensor, with a chip size measuring 202 x 205 mm. That’s 7.95 x 8.07 inches for those that deal in inches. The sensor is capable of capturing images in one one-hundredth the amount of light required by a professional-model digital SLR camera due to its expanded size enabling greater light-gathering capabilities. Potential applications for the new high-sensitivity CMOS sensor include the video recording of stars in the night sky and nocturnal animal behavior. Don’t expect to see this CMOS image sensor in Canon cameras at Walmart any time soon.
At 202 x 205 mm, the newly developed CMOS sensor is among the largest chips that can be produced from a 12-inch (300 mm) wafer, and is approximately 40 times the size of Canon’s largest commercial CMOS sensor. The increased size of the new CMOS sensor allows more light to be gathered thus enabling shooting in low-light environments. The sensor makes possible the image capture in one one-hundredth the amount of light required by a 35 mm full-frame CMOS sensor, facilitating the shooting of 60 frame-per-second video with a mere 0.3 lux of illumination.
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