Kodak Improves Sensors’ Low Light Performance

June 15, 2007: Kodak has announced new sensor technology that is claims “will help make dark, blurry digital photos a thing of the past”.
An extension of the existing Bayer Pattern filter that is used in all digital camera sensors, Kodak’s new proprietary technology adds panchromatic, or “clear” pixels to the red, green, and blue elements already on the sensor. Since these pixels are sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light, they collect a significantly higher proportion of the light striking the sensor. The remaining red, green, and blue pixels are then used to record the color information of the scene. Special software algorithms have been designed to work with the raw data generated from these new image sensors. These sophisticated algorithms use the more sensitive panchromatic pixels to act as the luminance channel of the final image, and derive chrominance information from the color pixels on the sensor.
A Kodak press release says the technology will be compatible with CMOS and CCD image sensors and can be applied across all digital camera devices ranging from camera phones to consumer digicams and even DSLR cameras. The company “is beginning to work with a number of leading companies to implement this new technology in system-wide solutions and to streamline the design-in process”. The first Kodak sensor to use this technology is expected to be available for sampling in the first quarter of 2008.