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p.2 #4 · p.2 #4 · How/when did Sony lose exclusivity to stacked sensors? | |
It is true it's no trivial matter to scale sensor designs to large sensor sizes such as FF. It only gets exponentially more difficult at a commercially level, the larger the sensor size gets. Sony Semi has been the only manufacturer to demonstrate this at a commercial level so naturally they remain the front runner as the potential manufacturing partner for Nikon's Z9 sensor, although not the only option. If you've only taken a cursory look you'd be forgiven for thinking there's only one supplier capable of stacked sensor and some form of exclusivity exists.
But large stacked sensors remains a small market so it may be of limited commercial appeal to many manufacturers who may be chasing much larger volumes in the smartphone world. We're only just seeing the first stacked sensor larger than 1" (4/3) appear in Sony Semi's catalogue (intended for a broader market). The larger stacked sensors have thus far been bespoke, made exclusively for a particular client's needs.
Stacked sensors is just a broad description of "sandwiching" together (by some sort of bonding method) more than one silicon chip in a 'stack' and isn't proprietary to any manufacturer. But in the ILC world, we've so far only been familiar with iterations in Sony Imaging's products. Much like having two rectangular pixels under the same microlens is not a unique sensor design but we in the ILC world are mostly only familiar with Canon's Dual Pixel designs. The name DPAF (Dual Pixel Autofocus) may even have been trademarked by Canon, I haven't checked.
So all we know is that the Z9 sensor is stacked but we don't know what will go into it. If it is to have a very fast readout, I would imagine memory of some kind will be required downstream somewhere. Will that appear as part of the stack, we don't know. Will it be the same as the A1's DRAM in the middle tri-stack? I'm doubtful of this because it has been rumoured this particular design is a Sony Imaging exclusive and hence will be unavailable to others. It doesn't, however mean that memory can't be incorporated into the stack in another design by Sony Semi or someone else. Samsung's ISOCELL is both a tri-stack with DRAM and a dual pixel design. But being a Korean manufacturer I haven't found any information to support an association with Nikon.
If Sony Semi ends up being the Z9 sensor fab, the implications would be that it will not be a Nikon in-house design (which is absolutely fine btw). Because you don't use Sony Semi just for foundry work, you use them for design and fab. And yes, this means the D850 has underlying Sony Semi EXMOR R pixel designs, designed by Sony Semi. To what extent Nikon 'designed' the D850 sensor is not known but it's not the underlying pixel design. For one thing, Jack Hogan (not Thom Hogan) at DPR has done some great analysis on the unique microlens design on the D850/Z7/II which trades QE for sharpness. The devil is in the detail so don't take what marketing (of any company) say too literally.
The rare exception where Sony Semi does foundry work is when they buy over a fab line as they did with the Toshiba line, thereby inheriting the existing fab contract of the D5/D6 sensor which predates the acquisition.
There are no issues with Sony Semi as the design and fab partners except it does break Nikon's tradition of using their in-house design in their flagship (non-x) model since the D2 series. However mirrorless sensor requirements are different from DSLR so sure, it would be wise to remain cautious until we actually see a Nikon in-house designed large stacked sensor. We've only seen a demonstration one in 1" sized so far but at least it shows an active design team capable of designing and able to source a fab partner to manufacture a stacked sensor design. That's also no trivial feat.
All this is to say, if you find this all quite interesting (which I do) do some research. I find this world fascinating and one particularly good and generous source is Bobn2 on DPR. He's a pretty straight shooter and not aligned with any manufacturers nor does he have any qualms about criticising any manufacturers.
Does this matter much at all to our cameras, not a bit as along as it performs to your expectations. These are just side interest topics, that unfortunately some like to use as ammo for brand wars.
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