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Kodak Promises Decent Phone Cameras |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Tuesday, 05 February 2008 |
Eastman Kodak says it has come up with a new idea, which, when combined with a new idea it had last year, will deliver better quality cameras for mobile phones.
The technology development announced in the middle of 2007 was
called Color Filter Pattern technology. Put simply it dedicated some of
the available pixel receptors to detect the amount of light rather than
specific color.
In a standard CMOS pixel, signal is measured by
detecting electrons that are generated when light interacts with the
surface of the sensor. As more light strikes the sensor, more electrons
are generated, resulting in a higher signal at each pixel.
Traditionally Red, Blue and Green filters are placed over the pixels to
detect how much of each color is present. But by leaving some pixels
un-filtered Kodak found it could get a general idea of how bright or
dark that particular region of the image is. Sewn up with some clever
digital signal processing and you get a better picture.
Now the
company has added another new idea. Rather than detect how much light
there is, why not detect how much dark there is. It turns out this
works even better! Especially in low light conditions such as indoors.
You
see there's a problem with very small sensors such as those used in
camera phones. As you increase the number of pixels, the size of the
pixels needs to get progressively smaller or the phone would be the
size of a shoe box, right. But when pixels get really small they start
approaching the wavelength of light and it gets a bit messy.
"Camera
phones and other small-pixel consumer imaging devices often suffer from
poor performance, especially under low light conditions. To manufacture
sensors that utilize these very small pixels - only two to three times
the wavelength of visible light - we needed to challenge everything we
knew about pixel and sensor design," said Chris McNiffe, General
Manager of Kodak's Image Sensor Solutions business.
By
measuring the absence of electrons to determine a signal Kodak says it
can cut down on the 'noisy' images you get from the relatively low
number of electrons being generated in low light conditions. Coupled
with the betterlight sensitivity from the panchromatic, or "clear,"
pixels the result is a 2x to 4x increase in light sensitivity (from one
to two photographic stops) compared to current sensor designs.
Reportedly
the combination of the two technologies makes the pixels 10 times more
efficient at detecting light and reduces the 'crosstalk' where pixel's
accidentally detect light from other pixels by as much as two-thirds.
It also decreases a thing called 'dark current' detection which is
where light is detected even though there isn't any.
This will
mean not only better indoor photos, but a reduction in the motion blur
found in action shots. Ultimately that means making the performance of
camera phones equal to the results you get from a traditional digital
camera which uses a different technology. But it also means Kodak can
pack more pixels into a smaller space making the technology perfect for
camera phones.
With 5 million pixels packed into the ¼"
optical format often used in phones the sensors can match ISO 3200 and
even support for full 720p video at 30 fps. It is also supported by the
Texas Instruments' technologies that provide things like image
stabilisation, rapid auto-focus, red-eye reduction, and facial
recognition.
"For consumers today, high resolution is
required but no longer sufficient," said Fas Mosleh, Worldwide Director
of CIS Marketing and Business Development for Kodak's Image Sensor
Solutions business. "Smaller and thinner camera phones, high
performance under low light, and superior video performance are the
types of features that will enable the next generation of consumer
imaging devices.
Kodak plans to make the product available to phone manufacturers and hopes to see it in the stores at the end of 2008, maybe 2009.
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