One of the biggest European machine vision camera vendors, Stemmer Imaging, posts a Q&A session with Mark Williamson, its Director of Corporate Market Development, on Sony decision to discontinue CCD products. Generally, Mark agrees that CCD era is over, although "The importance of the CCD to mankind was recognized by a Nobel prize in Physics in 2009. In the last few years there has been a big shift from CCD to CMOS in these high volume markets which has left the CCD wafer line very underutilized even with the high number of machine vision sensors sold. This makes the factory no longer financially viable."
Other quotes:
"In 2010, 22% of cameras we sold were based on CMOS sensors. This has risen to 58% in 2014 with 32% of cameras using Sony CCDs and the remainder other high end CCDs. With nearly all new camera designs using CMOS the prediction is that in a further 4 years the natural shift would make the CMOS market share approximately 80%."
"The higher end CCDs from ON Semiconductor (formerly Truesense and Kodak) and the full frame CCDs used in professional photography from Teledyne DALSA are still available for high end applications although over time CMOS will affect this market segment also."
IMV Europe too publishes an article on the Sony CCD news, mostly quoting machine vision camera vendors reports.
Other quotes:
"In 2010, 22% of cameras we sold were based on CMOS sensors. This has risen to 58% in 2014 with 32% of cameras using Sony CCDs and the remainder other high end CCDs. With nearly all new camera designs using CMOS the prediction is that in a further 4 years the natural shift would make the CMOS market share approximately 80%."
"The higher end CCDs from ON Semiconductor (formerly Truesense and Kodak) and the full frame CCDs used in professional photography from Teledyne DALSA are still available for high end applications although over time CMOS will affect this market segment also."
IMV Europe too publishes an article on the Sony CCD news, mostly quoting machine vision camera vendors reports.
