The Image Sensor: An Online Tutorial To Make You A Subject Master (Plus A Way Out For Kodak's Fiscal Disaster?)
November 08, 2011Thanks to both Steve Leibson's EDA360 Insider blog and Digital Photography Review for alerting me to today's primary post topic. Yale University recently posted a one-hour talk by CMOS image sensor inventor (and Photobit co-founder, with his wife) Eric Fossum, which I commend to your attention. It's the second annual Victor M. Tyler Distinguished Lectureship in Engineering lecture, entitled "Photons to Bits and Beyond: The Science & Technology of Digital Image Sensors". Leibson writes:
Although the first 10 minutes are very, very slow (academia has its own pace), the information content quickly ramps after that. What you’ll get by watching this video is a really intuitive grounding in many of the more mysterious—or mathematically intensive—aspects of digital imaging such as shot noise characteristics, front- and back-side illumination, Bayer filtering, and diffraction limits. You’ll also see what the future of these sensors looks like including new types of sensors (such as the Lytro plenoptic light-field sensor, ranging, and 3D sensors) and for EDA360 aficionados, what sort of processing is and will be needed to deliver the images we want.
Speaking of image sensors, and as some of you might already be aware, once-mighty Eastman Kodak has fallen on rough fiscal times in recent years, as it's struggled to make the transition from silver halide film to digital imaging (which it ironically pioneered). According to a rash of online reports over the past 24 hours, the company has sold off its Image Sensor Systems business unit to a Beverly Hills, CA private equity firm called Platinum Equity. Financial details were not disclosed. For more, see the following links: