Better Pictures Through Physics

Over the last decade, CMOS image sensor technology has made huge progress. Not only has the imager's performance improved drastically, but there has also been great commercial success since the introduction of mobile phones with onboard cameras. Many scientists and marketing specialists predicted 15 years ago that CMOS image sensors were going to take over completely from charge coupled device (CCD) imagers, just as CCD imagers took over the imaging business from tubes in the mid-1980s [1].