Sony announced announced specification changes to its Stacked CMOS Image Sensors IMX135 and IMX134 and the camera modules based on these sensors, IU135F3-Z and IU134F9-Z, which are scheduled for phased launch starting January 2013.
Sony will switch their color coding to a RGB instead of originally announced "RGB-W coding", as it has failed to meet "certain conditions of Sony's image quality standards".
Sony also changed the sensitivity specs (typical value F5.6): 92mV (Green pixel) and 127mV (White pixel) changed to 84mV (Green pixel).
Have any products shipped with RGBW sensors? Is there any real image quality improvement?
ReplyDeleteI find this to be a significant announcement!
ReplyDeletehmm, I've heard that there are some yield issue of Stacked Sensors due to W2W bonding alignment and thermal problem after bonding, but not sure whether those problem are related to the RGB-W structure.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Sony sign up for Ziptronics bond technology? Could that be the source of the bonding problems?
DeleteMaybe IP issues ? During ISE2012 in London, Sony presented their solution to the incompatibility between RGB-W and existing software and processing tools relying on the Bayer pattern. They converted the RGB-W first to Bayer RGB and then further processed the data by existing tools. Simple, but cleaver !
ReplyDeleteThe SAD thing here is that a company like Sony does not bother to check that their RGBW works before publishing their big PR a few weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time Nokia fooled the world with the fake movies. Now they came out with AMAZING low light performance using an OIS but they forgot to tell the world that the low light performance is mainly achieved by exposure of 1/3 sec. YES that is 333 milliseconds. It does wonders on static scenes but even a static person that is breathing will appear blurry in the images.
Big guys (corporates) - please check your tech before starting a party.
It seems that lots of people are doing the same thing. Filing a patent first, find out whether it is useful later :-<
DeleteRGBW is useful. But there are tradeoffs and I think it has not been clear if the tier 1 handset makers would accept the tradeoffs or not. The density of W pixels is also an important parameter and I think Sony was pretty aggressive on this parameter. It could be that in another generation or so of pixel shrink RGBW will become more acceptable.
Deletesignificant announcement if your neighbor is the geico guy who lives under a rock
ReplyDeleteAnyone noticed this news? Could it be the main reason why Sony abandon RGB-W structure? http://mashable.com/2012/09/26/iphone-5-purple-haze/
ReplyDelete