Yes, it will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.Its also about completely changing the business and in this case the small MF market and M9 market it may make much more sense to look at more consumer low end devices to support. Much more money in making P&S and lower end camera's than our market by a country mile. Seriously just think iPhone and having 5 million sensors to make or whatever that number maybe. Its about profit over and above costs to produce. the margins could be just so much higher to go low tech and in massive devices. Lots of possibilities here and I don't look at any of this with rose colored glasses. 35 years ago look at all the photo companies compared to how many today. It's staggering how many have hit the gutter.
There are a number of companies involved in making the smaller sensors for the mass quantity devices ... MacRumors has identified Sony as a supplier for the iPhone 4s ... 90% of which was originally thought to be allocated to OmniVision ... to what degree Sony is involved is yet to be determined, but it is a very competitive area and OmniVision's weak financial management and missed production deadlines is thought to be Sony's big foot in the door. The fact that Sony introduced the back illuminated sensor technology 2 years ago that is now in the iPhone 4s may have something to do with it.
BTW, that back illuminated sensor technology apparently has significantly improved low light performance on the iPhone 4s, and now Schneider has announced a high performance lens set kit for use on smart phones. I think regular P&S cameras are headed for Dodo land.
Then there is the possibility of a game changer ... like InVistage Inc's new Quantum Film ...
"The new semiconducting material was invented by Univeristy of Toronto professor Ted Sargent, who is now chief technology officer at InVisage. Sargent perfected a method of suspending lead-sulfide nanoparticles in a polymer matrix to form a new class of semiconducting polymer that Invisage has spent the last three years integrating into a standard CMOS process. Now it can paint quantum film atop a low-cost wafer that has the electrode array for super-dense high-pixel-count images, but without any of the expensive CMOS photodetectors that make up the bulk of conventional digital camera sensors.
"Our quantum film replaces the silicon used for image capture, but what we have really created here is a new semiconductor material," said Jess Lee, InVisage president and CEO. "Our quantum film even looks like photographic film—an opaque black material that we deposit right on the top layer of our image chip."
InVisage could have the next generation image sensor. "It gathers more light so you can either make a smaller image sensor for a less expensive cell phone camera, or you make a higher resolution sensor for high-end digital cameras," Marshall said. "It's a huge step forward and the market is also huge, so they will also need to overcome the problems facing any small company when trying to penetrate a large market."
Maybe with all this turmoil, this technology can also get its foot in the door?
The times they are a changing ...
-Marc