Interesting sounding sensor that Wayne posted about so I did a bit of searching.
Planet82 is a spinoff from a Korean govt research org KETI.
Planet82 spent about $10M US to develope the nano-photodiode technology
(single carrier modulation photo detector,"SMPD"). of SETI. There may be
patents as they claimed the IT licensed included patents, I did not search for
them.
(Don't try searhing for SMPD you just get refs to the Santa Monica Police
Dept!)
Plnet82's first actual product is a 640x480 4um4um pixel size, 30fps ,B&W
only, video sensor with 84db s/n ratio.
http://www.planet82.co.kr/korean/technology/i_cisspecification.asp
They claim "good" performance at 1 lux with enhancement to 0.1lux projected.
They seem related to Oly only in that this might be a good match for low
light use in video endoscopes or swallowabe endoscopic capsules!
Almost all the information I could find was based on press release hype from
the company. The clearest statement I could find :
http://nanotechwire.com/news.asp?nid=2765 :
"Current image sensors generally need hundreds of thousands of photons to
perceive light. Planet82's SMPD image sensor is designed to perceive light
using only a handful of photons. To make this possible, Planet82 applied the
principles of quantum mechanics to produce thousands of electrons out of one
photon. It also minimized the aperture ratio and increased the number of pixels
per unit density on the chip -- boasting low unit production cost and power
consumption. "
This description sounds somewhat similar to what happens in a solid state
avalance photo-detector (APD) or even silicon channel plate amplifier/older
photo-multiplier.
Their first chip with 4um pixels is bigger than the pixels in Sony video
chips, not a very impressive density. Channel plate amplifiers have been used
especially by military for many years for low light night vision use, but are
costly and more complex, HV devices..
An interesting claimed feature is to use standard cmos processing. This means
something like a conventional APD detector site is unlikely, as it requires
higher voltage process.
Overall sounds like it will appear as still camera in cell phones first,
where low light without flash would be especially useful and also market size
is larger.
Tim Hughes
Wayne S <om4t@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Not sure if this has been posted here but this is an interesting
new potential sensor technology.
http://nanotechwire.com/news.asp?nid=2765
Search Planet82 for more links. One of the reasons I liked the
OM system so much was the low light metering capability.
They claim 2000 times more sensitive. That must be 10-11
stops. Maybe this sensor can improve camera exposure
meters as well? Or how about low light auto-focus.
Wayne
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|