Here is what the translated press release says about the sensor:
Its onboard CMOS image sensor is a Canon developed its own products. CMOS wafer process into a more sophisticated production process, not only solved the cause of the high pixel area of each pixel to narrow the problem, but also uses a higher photoelectric conversion efficiency of the new photodiode. In improving the pixel sensitivity at the same time, the transistors within a pixel was modified to achieve a higher S / N (signal to noise) ratio. In order to effectively improve the condensing rate, in addition to using non-gap micro-lens technology, also used to reduce the micro-lens to the photodiode from the new technologies, successful beyond the rate of the previous condenser. EOS 7D commonly used ISO sensitivity of 100-6400, extended ISO sensitivity up to 12800. Image signal transmission is the sequence of the single-channel high-speed reading, while in 8-channel high-speed reading. Compared with the EOS 50D is about 1.3 times faster to achieve about 8 / s high-speed continuous shooting. Low-voltage power supply of high-speed amplifiers and a variety of energy-saving measures adopted to achieve the low power consumption.
My guess is that the process or technologies associated with the higher photoelectric conversion efficiency is a patent that Canon has. This may turn out to be a BIG deal.