Bipod

Thanks, Jim, for posting something really interesting and on-topic.

That link on Pregius S is exciting. Unfortunately, it doesn't talk about cost
or pricing.

"Back-illuminated pixel function" makes design and fabrication somewhat easier--
but doesn't necessarily reduce cost. Sony does seem to have improved resolution--
though it still can't match the best rolling shutter sensor (or straight sensor with
focal plane mechanical shutter --- still the benchmark of IQ).

As I'm sure you know, the angle thing comes down to geometry: the node-to-sensor length
and the wide dimension of the format. If a camera designer wants a short FFD and doesn't
want a tiny sensor, then the light must strike the corners of the sensor at a high angle. So
this advance by Sony is significant.

On the other hand, there is nothing forcing a short FFD other than consumer preferences
for dinky cameras. If consumers were to prefer miniature bicycles or minature pianos,
so what? It wouldn't make me want to ride one or play one.

I have to give Sony credit for tackling the problem. For many makers of mirrorless
cameras, the "solution" is a tiny sensor--and big advertising.

After hearing about global shutters for more than a decade....I'm jaded. Llike fusion power,
a perfected global shutter sensor is always "just around the corner".

It''s going to require 3D IC, which is at the bleeding edge of what is possible
to fabricate. It can be done....for industrial and military applicaitons. Sony already
has soe great industiral sensors. But very expensive.

Will prices come down? Well, high-end processor prices haven't. Multi-core Xeons
are mighty expensive. And the iTanium is cancelled.

The problem, I think , is that a "global shutter" isn't a shutter. It's a shutterless design.
Shutters interrupt a light beam, a "global shutter" sensor tries to move massive
amounts of data in a very short time. That has never been easy.

Solid sttate LCD shutters are off-the-shelf items. They just aren't fast enough. That
seems to me a much more tractable problem than what to do with heat when you've
got no air flow.

That link also doesn't talk about heat. The heat problem at high frame rates is not going
to go away. If you want to refrigerate the sensor, then it's manageable. But consumer cameras
have no air flow, let alone room (or batttery capacity) for refrigeration.

How long would an Intel Xeon processor last with no heat sink and no air flow? Probably
about 1 minute. Then it would be hot enough to fry an egg.

If you are willing to give up speed, then you can get the power consumption way down.
Bu tnobody wants a camera with a maximum shutter speed of 100. And these days, a
lot of confusmers are demanding high frame rates for video.

Besides, if Sony ever gets it working with APS-C, "full frame" is larger still. And medium f
format....

When I was a kid, the fastest airplane in the world was the Lockheed SR-71. I built the Revel
scale model--made from the Lockheed blueprints--when the entire design was still classified.
It may have been secret, but I had an accurate scale model of the airframe hanging in my bedroom.

Today the SR-71 is still the fastest airplane in the world. Could Lockheed Martin build a faster one?
Sure. Only, nobody is willing to pay for it. There is no mission that is worth the enormous cost.
The SR-17 is retired, and the U2 is still flying. How ironic!

I once watched two U-2s take off from Beal AFB in CA.: a black one belonging to the USAF and
a white one belonging to NASA. First one, then the other climbed through our altitude, very slowly,
then turned the nose up and climbed out of sight--as if it was on an escalator.. Fantastic.
Probably landed somewhere in Europe.

The U-2 turned out to be more cost-effective and less "bleeding edge" than the SR-71. I mean,
triethylborane ignition on contact with air--not something Cessna is likely to adopt. The SR-71
is like a race car. I understand there is only one two-seater SR-71B trainer still in existence
(the other one crashed).

There's technology, and then there's consumer technology. Global shutters are the former.
Great for industrial and military applications, but as unlikely a consumer product as a
ramjet engine.

But if you can find 500,000 consumers each willing to pay $10,000 for a perfected global shutter
digital camera, I believe Sony could deliver it. Otherwise it will remain an industrial and
military product--a lucratative market in which Sony is doing quite well.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Thank you Bipod for your reply. Actually, some of the issues you raised aren't nearly as difficult as the points you raise.

Elimination of Rolling Shutter -- Yes the design they are describing will eliminate rolling shutter completely - if they provide sufficient memory to store the entire pixel array. The way this is being described, it looks like they are talking about storing the values from each pixel in parallel into a memory array. This being the case, then the process would be a clear operation for the pixels (don't know how long a clear will take, but I assume it is quite short) and then a second operation to download pixel contents to memory in parallel. Note: The Sony A9 only went part way there to be completely parallel, and the result was vastly improved rolling shutter response, but not 100% there. If every pixel has a dedicated A to D and its own memory cell, then this truly becomes a parallel store.

Regarding hearing about Global Shutter for a decade -- That's true. But the technology to actually do it needed to be developed first. And I believe the technology is finally here.

3D IC -- Maybe not. BSI design provides a lot of extra real estate on the other side to fit a lot of circuitry. Primarily, the needs are an A to D for each pixel and a memory location to store it. There will be a need to control this circuitry and a way to read back this memory. I am wondering also what type of memory makes the most sense. The fastest memory is SRAM, but it takes 6 FETs per captured bit. Likely they would store 16 bits. DRAM is smaller and only needs one FET and one capacitor per captured bit. It is slower than SRAM, but is probably fast enough to not affect operation. Since the memory is only to be written to and then immediately read back, seems like no refresh is needed, so the design can be simpler. Any way they do it, this is a custom design. There are no off the shelf parts for this one.

Cost -- Sony is already shipping FF cameras with BSI sensors. My A7iii has one. Adding the extra circuitry is not that big of stretch and is not likely to push the cost through the Stratosphere. Also, I do believe that using conventional sensors is not practical for this application.

I think this unicorn is about ready to be seen. And its going to be very interesting to see how it works out.

Bipod

Basically, it comes down to whether BSI global sensor sensors can equal
the resolution of comperable rolling shutter sensors, and whether they can
be made cheaply enough.

If not, the only alternative is 3D stacking (e.g., 3D BSI)--which shows no
signs of becoming affordable. Moreover, going to 3D makes the heat problem
much worse.

While costs may come down some, there is no guaranteed that BSI global
shutter sensors in APS-C or FF fomrats will ever be cheap enough for the
consumer market.

Engineering is about trade-offs. Only in purely digital ICs can you have it all:
miniature, cheap, low-power. But even there, you're get getting the consumer-grade
version of the chip, not mil-spec. It won't be as reliable.

Consumers are constantly told they are getting the very latest technologies---
because that's a great way to sell stuff. But in fact many technologies never
make it to consumers. Consumers don't see them, so they don't know.

Joe Consumer is very impressed by their new hybrid Toyota Preius. He doesn't
realize it's much less efficient than a diesel-electric locomotive engine, or even
then a gas turbine engine.

In the late 1970s, Mack built a gas-turbine powere engine, the GT-601. A few were
installed in truck tractors: Macks, Cruise-Liners and Super-Liners. Over 7000
hours of operation and 2000 highway truck miles were recorded. It worked great!
But Mack never succeeded in getting the price of the GT-601 down to where it
was competitive with turbo-diesel piston engines in the trucking market.

Digital cameras don't become very small , very good and very cheap because they
aren't pure digital electronics--image sensors are analog-to-digital opto-electronics.

Does anyone here own any state-of-the-art optical device? Microscrope,
telescope, periscope, spectrometer, interferometer, etc.?

Chris T Loc: from England across the pond to New England

Jim - Back-Side Illuminated Sensors have been around for quite a while. Sony Cybershot cameras, have had them, plus there are other manufacturers who use them in their designs. From the article you copied from the Sony Rumors site, before - it does seem as though Sony has, at long last - perfected the Global Shutter - but, that article reiterates it's not quite ready for Consumer Cameras. As you've pointed out - the a9 - is close, but no cigar. The industrial design hits the target, but, I don't think we're going to see it in any consumer camera, for some time to come. The firmware update available for the a9 - incorporates AI … and that puts it a little closer to perfection - but that Unicorn you spoke of - is STILL just a fantasy!!!

Bipod

I remember when we were told that nuclear-generated electric power
would be "too cheap to meter". Today nuclear energy is the most
expensive way to make electricity.

And Intel told us that itsl Itanium chip--with its Explicity Parrallel Instruction
Computing (EPIC) instuction set--was supposed to revolutionize computing.
But it only ever had one customer (HP/HPE), and now it's cancelled--the last chip
will ship in 2021. Check out this graph of successive Intel sales forecasts:
https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/I/m/Itanium_Sales_Forecasts_edit.png

There is good reason to be skeptical about predictions and claims from high-tech
companies--even the best ones.

Chris T Loc: from England across the pond to New England

Guess what else ends in 2021, Bipod? … The Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant will cease operations, too. It supplies 25% of all the energy needs of New York City and 12% of all of New York State's energy needs.

Bipod

Wow. I had no idea. Hope it works out.

I was happy when famous robber-baron Bill Gates donated some of his monopoly
profits to trying to find a safer type of reactor for power generation. It should be
a national priority, IMHO.

At one time, I thought GE pressurized water reactors were safe. That was before
the Fukushima disaster.

Now I think that a heat source that cannot be turned off (requiring constant pumping
of cooling water to avoid a meltdown) is inherently unsafe. How would you like to
have a gas furnace that can't be shut off for your house?

No new technology-- no mattter how impressive -- should be rolled out until it is
ready: all the major problems have been solved. The first nuclear power generating
station when on line in April 1957. The Fukushima disaster was in 2011 -- 54
years of commercial deployment didn't make nuclear power safe. That doesn't
mean nuclear power can't be made safe--it just means it can't be made safe by
GE Nuclear, Bechtal, etc.

Those are very good engineering companies, but the profit motive is too great. Also,
dafety (like security) has to be designed in to any large and complex system from the
beginning. It's noy an add-on feature.

Chris T Loc: from England across the pond to New England

That one is quite close to here, too, Bipod … I'm sure many are breathing sighs of relief its tenure is now coming to an end. They had a fire there, fairly recently, and I suppose that got a lotta folks shaking at the knees - but no more so than the incident at Three Mile Island. Between those two - which are both within a short distance from NYC - I gather Americans (New Yorkers, particularly) are getting pretty wary of Nuclear Power, in general - what with Fukushima in recent memory, and Chernobyl - in the Ukraine - some years ago - of course - THAT particular one - was a COMPLETE MELTDOWN - much worse than the one in Japan, and the two incidents here on the east coast of the USA. But, wherever there's a problem - the local residents have much right to be concerned. The areas around Chernobyl now, are completely contaminated, and Japanese residents were advised to move out of the Fukushima area - for about a 25-mile square radius, too. As long as they work, and we all receive the benefits of the energy they produce, everything's fine - but as soon as there's even a MINOR problem - such as the one at Indian Point in Buchanan, NY (less than a half-hour's drive from here) they are quick to put to action, eventual shutdown.

Bipod - the first Nuclear Power Plant went into action in Russia - in 1954. Not long after that, there was one in Idaho which went into action. Soon after that, one at Jodrell Bank, in the UK - went into action.

On June 27, 1954, the USSR's Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant became the world's first nuclear power plant to generate electricity for a power grid, and produced around 5 megawatts of electric power.

tdekany Loc: Oregon

Not you, but you insist. I wonder why?

But this should put an end to your fake news Chris

(Download)

tdekany Loc: Oregon

And while we are at it, here are the Samsung cameras you can purchase at B&H as of now

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=Samsung%20camera&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ma&Top+Nav-Search=

Chris T Loc: from England across the pond to New England

Don't describe it as "my fake news" Tom … YOU read the report - same as I did …

Glad to see Oly won't be going anywhere anytime soon …

tdekany Loc: Oregon

You posted the link, didn’t you? That was your source, you kept telling me to read it, every time I said that Olympus is NOT going anywhere, you kept citing it.

Chris T Loc: from England across the pond to New England

Kept, huh, Tom?

It was NOT "fake news" Tom ... it was a report from a meeting of the Olympus Board of Directors!!!!