Sensor breakthrough: Sony has developed a backlit CMOS sensor with global shutter

[IanL]

This was announced on 11th Feb by Sony - A new type of back illuminated CMOS sensor with global shutter. A global shutter means the entire chip can be read out simultaneously, vs. a rolling shutter where the chip is read out row by row. Global shutter is ideal for high frame rates (planetary/lunar/solar imaging), but current global shutter chips achieve this by having a second parallel pixel well for each pixel (blanked from incoming photons) and accompanying readout circuitry (typically one set per four pixels). This greatly reduces the active area of the sensor and so reduces its efficiency - somewhat mitigated by the use of microlenses to direct the otherwise lost photons to the active area of each pixel, but that can bring its own problems (e.g. the diffraction issues with the Panasonic sensor used in the ASI1600 and equivalents from other camera manufacturers).

The new chip has a two-layer setup with the active area on top of the storage/readout layer. The first model of sensor is relatively small but you can be sure this is the next step in CMOS technology and will develop further rapidly.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/1945724359/sensor-breakthrough-sony-has-developed-a-backlit-cmos-sensor-with-global-shutter

[Tim]

Very interesting Ian, thanks for sharing. The constant advances in imaging equipment are very exciting.