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Monday, February 23, 2015

Sony to Discontinue CCD Products?

This info originally appeared in a number of forums, such as this one, but it has no official confirmation. The info can be a hoax.

Said all that, it seems that Sony intends to discontinue its entire line of CCD products. The story started unfolding at the end of January with closing the production line for the complementary color filters and the Kagoshima 200mm wafer production line. Last week, Framos, one of the Sony CCD distributors, sent the following email to its customers:

"Dear Customer!

This message is to inform that SONY decided to discontinue all their CCD image sensor products! Attached please find the official letters from SONY!

The CCD End-of-Life plan of SONY is the following:
- customers need to order their last-time-buy quantities by end of Aug 2015
- SONY fab will shut-down March 2017
- deliveries can be made until March 2020

Please note: for new designs, especially with CMOS sensors we can offer in-depth technical support and are able to provide reference designs etc to you under certain conditions. Especially we are already working on reference designs of the upcoming IMX25x-series.

If there are any questions or any further need, please contact your FRAMOS account manager, or sales@framos.com as soon as possible!"

Before that, Sony reportedly sent to its customers two announcements dated by the end of January:


Thanks to NA for the info!

Update: According to Sony Semiconductor flyer dated by Feb. 4, 2015, CCD used to be manufactured at Kagoshima and Kumamoto fabs:

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10 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 23, 2015 at 5:34 PM

    only for CCD with complementary CFA, no?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Vladimir KoifmanFebruary 23, 2015 at 8:40 PM

      Framos letter says that all CCDs are to be discontinued. This might explain the strange withdrawal of the new ICX816 CCD announcement. The announcement appeared on Sony site on Feb. 18 and has been removed on Feb. 21. The Framos letter is dated by Feb. 20, or so I was told.

      Delete
    2. Vladimir KoifmanFebruary 23, 2015 at 8:42 PM

      Here is the link to ICX816 news:

      http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.co.il/2015/02/sony-announces-new-sensors.html

      Delete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 24, 2015 at 1:00 AM

    They will cease production in Kagoshima 200mm line, but they will continue production in other fabs, I guess

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousFebruary 24, 2015 at 3:49 AM

    A final vindication of the very bold prediction made 22 years ago: “Are CCD dinosaurs?”

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousFebruary 24, 2015 at 7:43 PM

    This means that they are confident that their CMOS can replace all the CCD applications with better performance. This should be closely related to their Pregius CMOS. I guess that the finer pitch versions will come shortly.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Paul JurczakFebruary 26, 2015 at 12:01 AM

    Here is another confirmation from Allied Vision:
    http://www.alliedvisiontec.com/emea/news/news-display/article/sony-announces-end-of-ccd-sensor-production.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousFebruary 26, 2015 at 1:39 PM

    Has anyone seen the device lists referenced in both of the Sony notification letters? If so please post.

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousFebruary 26, 2015 at 6:07 PM

    At the moment, these lists are titled "confidential".

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousFebruary 26, 2015 at 8:29 PM

    Sony has a "no comment" policy on this right now. I would wait for official confirmation. Some companies could be jumping the gun here, in my opinion.

    ReplyDelete

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