SEPTEMBER 28--Foveon (Santa Clara, CA, USA), a fabless image-sensor company, has released the first product manufactured by its new strategic manufacturing partner Dongbu Electronics (Seoul, South Korea). The 14.1-Mpixel X3 DSLR image sensor is reportedly the highest-resolution X3 sensor available. Foveon and Dongbu have worked for more than a year to enhance X3 technology and develop high-quality and cost-effective X3 image-sensor manufacturing capability.
Foveon's proprietary X3 technology stacks red, green, and blue pixels vertically, increasing the information density of the recorded image while simultaneously eliminating the color-sampling artifacts found with other image sensors. The X3 sensor packs 14.1 million pixels, each 7.8 μm, into a 3-D array of 2652 x 1768 x 3 pixels with an active image area of 20.69 x 13.79 mm.
Competing color image sensor technologies rely on a pattern of red, green, and blue pixels arranged next to each other. By stacking pixels, Foveon achieves a higher pixel density, increasing the image quality obtainable per unit area of silicon. The stacked pixel array has the added benefit of eliminating color sampling artifacts, without requiring the use of an optical blur filter.
The sensor is in production now and will soon be available in new cameras manufactured by Sigma Corporation of Tokyo, Japan. Foveon and Dongbu Electronics will continue to collaborate on Foveon X3 image-sensor products for consumer and other applications.
Dongbu Electronics provides CMOS processing for system-on-chip solutions that integrate advanced logic, analog, and mixed-signal technologies. For more information on Dongbu Electronics visit: www.dongbuelec.com.
For more information on Sigma Corp. of Japan and the new Foveon-powered cameras, visit: www.sigmaphoto.com and www.sigma-sd14.com.
