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Wednesday, October 02, 2013

Fujifilm Announces CMOS Sensor for Endoscopy

In consumer applications this Fujufilm's announcement would sound like from 10 years ago. But medical market is different: "Fujifilm is proud to make use of the over-megapixel customised CMOS sensor. Our experience over many years in optoelectronics and electronic imaging shows the superior quality of this technology and we can expect that our customers will see the difference instantly" says Kazuhiko Takemura, Head of European Endoscope Department, Fujifilm Europe.

By adapting a CMOS image sensor, Fujifilm's 600 series endoscopes enable super-high resolution images to be produced. The leading-edge CMOS technology realizes less noise and brilliant images by converting the analog signal to digital in the tip of the scope. During transmission the digital signal is much less affected by any noise from the outside. CMOS technology also realizes 60fps progressive video.

10 comments:

  1. Does anyone know what sensor they are using? Endoscopes require very small sensors, so the pixel count is usually low because you want the pixels to be as big as possible for dynamic range and low light performance. A high pixel count means that one of the two were likely sacrificed.

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    1. Or the patient has to suffer ....

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  2. The distal mounted cmos sensors have critical need for dimensions. The smallest sensor I have seen is about 2 mm in diameter. Adding the packaging, the endoscope tip would have a diameter of ~4 mm. Endoscope always has its own lighting through fiber guide. So lighting is normally not an issue. But heat dissipation is as it should not release the heat to the metal shell but internally. The electrical insulation is another issue per FDA regulation as the endoscope tip is inside human body.

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  3. putting together smaller and= higher resolution is not equal to lower dynamic range, old myth

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    1. small pixel=low full well=low inherent DR=low sensitivity. You might use DR extension methods or digital binning

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  5. There are a lot of factors,if you are averring and looking at the same size as the lower resolution is one , read out noise from the sensor etc etc
    Example Sony/Nikon d800 36MP sensor with smaller pixels has higher DR than 1dx the flagship from Canon with much larger pixels and 18Mp resolution. 14,4 stops compared to 11,2 in the Canon. This due the 14,1 times higher read out noise in the Canon

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    1. That is valid for large pixels only. With small pixels (1-1.5u pitch) you are limited by full well. Usually you get about 2-300mV signal from such a small pixel. I don't think you can use an APC-C format for an endoscopic camera!

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  6. Emil Martinec has written a nice paper about small vs big pixels http://theory.uchicago.edu/~ejm/pix/20d/tests/noise/noise-p3.html

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  7. why? same thing with small pixel, it is the area of the sensor who matters, and off course it would be inconvenient to have an APS sensor up in the butt

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