Sony announces own backside illuminated CMOS — take that OmniVision

Well, there you have it: the BSI gauntlet has been officially thrown. Sony just announced its own backside-illuminated CMOS sensor meant to rival OmniVision’s achievment. Sony’s sensor features 1.75 micron pixels totalling 5 effective megapixels capable of 60fps and offers low noise at twice the sensitivity of traditional sensors at the same pixel size. That’s a signal to noise ratio of +8dB (+6dB sensitivity, -2dB noise), nerds. Nice Sony, but OmniVision’s 8 megapixel sensor targeting cameraphones (Sony’s is apparently targeting digital cameras and camcorders) brings the pixels down to 1.4 microns (with 0.9 micron pixels on the roadmap) albeit with an undisclosed SNR. Regardless, we look forward to seeing our friend’s chemically-spiked club shots in excruciatingly slovenly detail later this year.

BSI, learn it — it’s shaping up to do for imaging what perpendicular did for magnetic storage.