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Foveon, Inc., is an American company that manufactures and distributes image sensor technology. It makes the Foveon X3 sensor, which captures images in some digital cameras.
Foveon was founded in 1997 and is based in Santa Clara, California. In 2008 it was bought by Sigma Corporation. [1] [2]
The company, founded in 1997 by Carver Mead, Richard Lyon, Richard B. Merrill, Richard Turner, Richard Nedwich, and others, was a spin-off of National Semiconductor and Synaptics. The founding directors were: Federico Faggin (president and CEO of Synaptics), Brian Halla (chairman, president/CEO of National Semiconductor), and Dick Sanquini (VP of National Semiconductor).
It is based in Santa Clara, California. Foveon was initially known for their high-end digital portrait camera systems built around a color-separation beam-splitter prism assembly. Later, the X3 pixel sensor became the company's main product. Both the prism system and the X3 technology derive their benefit from sampling all three primary colors at all pixel locations, instead of employing a Bayer pattern approach sampling a specific color at each pixel location. [3] : 136–137
Foveon was previously known as Foveonics. The name is derived from the fovea of the human eye, which enables sharp imaging while reading or watching television.
George Gilder wrote The Silicon Eye, which tells the story of Foveon and its founders.
On 11 November 2008, when Federico Faggin was the CEO, all shares of Foveon stock were acquired by Sigma Corporation. The company continued in a new location as a wholly owned portion of Sigma.
In digital imaging, a pixel, pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the smallest element that can be manipulated through software.
Federico Faggin is an Italian physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group during the first five years of Intel's microprocessor effort. Faggin also created, while working at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968, the self-aligned MOS (metal–oxide–semiconductor) silicon-gate technology (SGT), which made possible MOS semiconductor memory chips, CCD image sensors, and the microprocessor. After the 4004, he led development of the Intel 8008 and 8080, using his SGT methodology for random logic chip design, which was essential to the creation of early Intel microprocessors. He was co-founder and CEO of Zilog, the first company solely dedicated to microprocessors, and led the development of the Zilog Z80 and Z8 processors. He was later the co-founder and CEO of Cygnet Technologies, and then Synaptics.
The Foveon X3 sensor is a digital camera image sensor designed by Foveon, Inc., and manufactured by Dongbu Electronics. It uses an array of photosites that consist of three vertically stacked photodiodes. Each of the three stacked photodiodes has a different spectral sensitivity, allowing it to respond differently to different wavelengths. The signals from the three photodiodes are then processed as additive color data that are transformed to a standard RGB color space.
A Bayer filter mosaic is a color filter array (CFA) for arranging RGB color filters on a square grid of photosensors. Its particular arrangement of color filters is used in most single-chip digital image sensors used in digital cameras, camcorders, and scanners to create a color image. The filter pattern is half green, one quarter red and one quarter blue, hence is also called BGGR,RGBG, GRBG, or RGGB.
Carver Andress Mead is an American scientist and engineer. He currently holds the position of Gordon and Betty Moore Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Applied Science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), having taught there for over 40 years. He taught Deborah Chung, the first female engineering graduate of Caltech. He advised the first female electrical engineering student at Caltech, Louise Kirkbride. His contributions as a teacher include the classic textbook Introduction to VLSI Systems (1980), which he coauthored with Lynn Conway.
A digital single-lens reflex camera is a digital camera that combines the optics and the mechanisms of a single-lens reflex camera with a digital imaging sensor.
Sigma Corporation is a Japanese company, manufacturing cameras, lenses, flashes and other photographic accessories. All Sigma products are produced in the company's own Aizu factory in Bandai, Fukushima, Japan. Although Sigma produces several camera models, the company is best known for producing high-quality lenses and other accessories that are compatible with the cameras produced by other companies.
The Sigma SD10 is a digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) manufactured by the Sigma Corporation of Japan. It was announced on October 27, 2003, and is an evolution of the previous SD9 model, addressing many of the shortcomings of that camera. The Sigma SD10 cameras are unique in the digital DSLR field in using full-color sensor technology, and in that they only produce raw format images that require post-processing on a computer.
An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to form an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves into signals, small bursts of current that convey the information. The waves can be light or other electromagnetic radiation. Image sensors are used in electronic imaging devices of both analog and digital types, which include digital cameras, camera modules, camera phones, optical mouse devices, medical imaging equipment, night vision equipment such as thermal imaging devices, radar, sonar, and others. As technology changes, electronic and digital imaging tends to replace chemical and analog imaging.
An active-pixel sensor (APS) is an image sensor, which was invented by Peter J.W. Noble in 1968, where each pixel sensor unit cell has a photodetector and one or more active transistors. In a metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) active-pixel sensor, MOS field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) are used as amplifiers. There are different types of APS, including the early NMOS APS and the now much more common complementary MOS (CMOS) APS, also known as the CMOS sensor. CMOS sensors are used in digital camera technologies such as cell phone cameras, web cameras, most modern digital pocket cameras, most digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLRs), and mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras (MILCs).
In digital imaging, a color filter array (CFA), or color filter mosaic (CFM), is a mosaic of tiny color filters placed over the pixel sensors of an image sensor to capture color information.
Richard "Dick" Francis Lyon is an American inventor, scientist, and engineer. He is one of the two people who independently invented the first optical mouse devices in 1980. He has worked in many aspects of signal processing and was a co-founder of Foveon, Inc., a digital camera and image sensor company.
The Sigma SD14 is a digital single-lens reflex camera produced by the Sigma Corporation of Japan. It is fitted with a Sigma SA mount which takes Sigma SA lenses.
OmniVision Technologies Inc. is an American subsidiary of Chinese semiconductor device and mixed-signal integrated circuit design house Will Semiconductor. The company designs and develops digital imaging products for use in mobile phones, laptops, netbooks and webcams, security and surveillance cameras, entertainment, automotive and medical imaging systems. Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, OmniVision Technologies has offices in the US, Western Europe and Asia.
In digital photography, the image sensor format is the shape and size of the image sensor.
The Sigma DP1 was a high-end compact digital camera introduced by the Sigma Corporation. It featured a 14-megapixel Foveon X3 sensor, a fixed 16.6 mm F4.0 lens, a 2.5-inch (64 mm) LCD and a pop-up flash. It was the first "compact" camera that featured an APS-C sized sensor, a feature that Sigma claimed would result in DSLR quality images from a small, pocketable camera.
Richard Billings Merrill (1949–2008), a.k.a. Dick Merrill, was an American inventor, engineer, and photographer.
Aptina Imaging Corporation was a company that sold CMOS imaging products. Their CMOS sensors were used in Nikon V1, Nikon J1, Nikon V2. By 2009 year Aptina had a 16% share of the CMOS image sensors market, with revenue estimated at $671 million. The company was acquired in 2014 by ON Semiconductor
The Sigma SD15 is an updated version of Sigma SD14 DSLR produced by the Sigma Corporation of Japan and featuring the improved TRUE II image processing engine, but with the same image sensor as its predecessor. As such, the SD15 features the 4.7 MP Foveon X3 sensor. After having showcased the camera in photokina 2008 and officially introduced during PMA 2010, it finally began shipping in June 2010. It is Sigma's fourth DSLR since the SD9 from 2002.
The Sigma SD1 is a digital SLR camera produced by the Sigma Corporation of Japan. The camera uses a Foveon X3 sensor, which comprises 3 layers of 4800 x 3200 pixels, giving much higher chromatic resolution than the equivalent Bayer array. It uses a Milbeaut image processor. The Foveon sensor does not use an aliasing filter, thus further improving the resolution.