Thursday, October 04, 2012

Large Format Sensors Get Emmy Award

TV Week: The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) announced the recipients of the 64th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards that will take place at CES on January 10, 2013. This is the 7th consecutive year that the Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards have been presented.

One of the awards go to the imaging companies for "Improvements to Large Format CMOS Imagers for Use in High Definition Broadcast Video Cameras". The companies that get the award are:
  • Arnold & Richter Cine Technik (ARRI)
  • Canon USA, Inc.
  • RED Studios
  • Sony Electronics Inc.

I was told that the fact that the adjectival phrase "large format" was inserted means that all others are still under consideration for future awards.

Thanks to MS for the link!

19 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Does RED Studios design its own sensors? If not, then it is sad that the design company is not on this list.

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    1. RED design their own sensors and they do a pretty good job

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    2. Do you mean design as in "Specify" or design as in circuit design, layout, parasitic capacitance, etc.? Oddly I have never met or heard of an image sensor designer who works for RED. That is why I ask.

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    3. Red's sensor is designed in Singapore. Red has never been clear who exactly designs it.

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    4. Designed by Red in California.Ran into whispers at onshore packaging house.

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    5. It is an interesting conjecture that Red designs its own sensors. I don't subscribe to that thought. I have heard whispers too. I stand by my original statement that it is too bad that the technologists who performed the technically-challenging sensor design were not included, either for Red or Arri. Nice job you guys!

      And, congratulations to Red and Arri who had the determination and vision to launch the projects and provided the interesting problems for the designers to solve.

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    6. Eric, In the same vein, we should also congratulate the pure play fab partners who must have fabricated devices for RED and ARRI. Canon and Sony have their own fabs.

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    7. If the process was changed in a technically challenging way in order to implement the large format sensor, then yes. If it is the same process that is used to make "ordinary" image sensors then I think the (hypothetical) case is much weaker. I suspect it is mostly the latter. Process partners (internal or external) also have made many important contributions over the years (BSI, dark current, microoptics, etc., not to mention yield).

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    8. Actually, I misread what GOST wrote. I didn't meant to withhold congratulations. I was thinking about being "included" in the award.

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  3. The same argument applies to ARRI.

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  4. http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2010/12/cypress-makes-image-sensors-for-arri.html

    this group is now part of ON Semiconductor

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    1. Congratulations then to that design group at ON as well as to ARRI.

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  5. A further and/or next-year's award should go to Eric. There's more credit he is due as a CIS pioneer than should go to any recent CIS development for broadcast video cameras. But people have short memories.

    What was I writing about? Ah, school pick-up, and shepherding the double playdate.

    Gangnam style!!!

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  6. Regarding ARRI, their sensor (in the Alexa) is not just a Cypress design with minor tweaks. ARRI has contributed significant ideas to their own sensor (especially regarding HDR), so in their case the award is well-earned.

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    1. How do you know about ARRI's contribution in the design of the sensor ? Is this published somewhere ?

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  7. ARRI does not publish in scientific journals, but the principles were described in their marketing material when the Alexa came out. I'm not sure, but I think maybe the inventor from ARRI talked at a few conferences. There are also patents.

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  8. Arri were actively involved in their sensor and work with others like Frauhofer who will likely be invloved in the Alexa replacement. Panavision worked with Sony on Genesis / F35 in both cases Arri & Panavision without their involvement the design would not be as it was. Like most products today they are colaborations no one person or company can take all the credit.

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    1. Right, my point exactly. At least we can congratulate those important collaborators within our own image sensor technologist community even if they are not recognized by the Emmy award directly.

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