Kodak unveils new mobile phone image sensor

Imaging giant Eastman Kodak Company announced the release of the Kodak KAC-05020 Image Sensor, a 1.4 micron, 5 megapixel device designed for mass-consumer camera applications like mobile handsets. According to Kodak, the new sensor promises a new level of resolution in small optical formats, using significantly smaller pixels while providing image quality equal or greater than what devices using larger, 1.75 micron pixel CMOS designs deliver. Kodak will demonstrate the KAC-05020 next week at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

"Camera phones and other small-pixel consumer imaging devices often suffer from poor performance, especially under low light conditions," said Kodak's Image Sensor Solutions general manager Chris McNiffe in a prepared statement. "To manufacture sensors that utilize these very small pixels--only two to three times the wavelength of visible light--we needed to challenge everything we knew about pixel and sensor design. By completely rethinking the design of the CMOS pixel and leveraging our work with high-sensitivity color filter patterns and algorithms, Kodak was able to develop this remarkable new sensor that will enable a level of imaging performance previously unavailable from CMOS devices."

For more on the KAC-05020:
- read this release