Toshiba Launches Highly Sensitive CMOS Image Sensor With Back Side Illumination
Toshiba Corporation launched a new 1.12-micrometer pixel CMOS image sensor, the latest addition to its CMOS image sensor lineup, that offers the industry's smallest pixel size with enhanced sensitivity and improved imaging performance of back-side illumination technology (BSI).
As smartphones get smaller and their image sensors continue to offer higher resolutions, now in a range from 5 megapixels to 8 megapixels, the challenge here is about smaller pixels, where miniaturization can result in degradation of performance. BSI overcomes this and brings a new level of responsiveness to CMOS imaging. BSI sensors feature lenses on the back, on the silicon substrate, not on the front where wiring limits light absorption. Such positioning boosts light sensitivity and absorption and allows formation of finer image pixels in smaller CMOS image sensors.
Toshiba has made full use of the advantages of BSI to make image pixels with the pitch of 1.12 micrometers and to pack 8.08 million of them into a 1/4-inch sensor. The company expects BSI CMOS image sensors to become the mainstream technology in portable digital devices, with applications expanding from digital cameras to smartphones and tablets.
Sampling of the new sensor will begin at the end of this month and mass production will follow in the end of 2011.
Source: Toshiba Corporation
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