3 ms·

Yes, if you make the pixels smaller, the sensor will get less light sensitive. But for most applications, the sensor size is given (e.g. 35mm cameras) and small

by _ph_ 11y ago

Yes, if you make the pixels smaller, the sensor will get less light sensitive. But for most applications, the sensor size is given (e.g. 35mm cameras) and smaller process sizes would mean, that more of the per-pixel area is taken for light recording and less for the electronic elements on each pixel.

acqq 11y ago
Looking at the sensor under microscope the amount of photons received is determined more by the area of the pixel than the size of the features under that area: http://petapixel.com/2013/02/12/what-a-dslrs-cmos-sensor-looks-like-under-a-microscope/ http://petapixel.com/2013/02/12/what-a-dslrs-cmos-sensor-loo... I'd still like to get a link in support of the claim of significant benefit of lithography process improvement to the sensor sensitivity, unless it's about the smallest sensors (as in mobile phones or smaller) and very high pixel count.
- dzhiurgis 11y ago
  From what I've watched about CMOS sensors and I could be mistaken, the comparison could be similar to making your CPU registers smaller but ramping the frequency of how often you access hit them (which is akin to increased framerate). So the net amount of captured light is the same, but you have many more frames now. With sophisticated software (or onboard hardware) this can be reassembled to the same picture as well. And you are looking at this a bit wrong way. On mobile devices - your bottleneck is lens size, so you have to have smaller pixels. Now if your pixels are large, the register (I think they are called wells on CMOS sensors) has to pull in much more information at higher power requirements which introduces noise which you have to "mask" with even more photon energy? Again, I could be getting this totally wrong and of course it's best to have big lens with lots of pixels.

3 ms·

Yes, if you make the pixels smaller, the sensor will get less light sensitive. But for most applications, the sensor size is given (e.g. 35mm cameras) and small

by _ph_ 11y ago

acqq 11y ago
Looking at the sensor under microscope the amount of photons received is determined more by the area of the pixel than the size of the features under that area: http://petapixel.com/2013/02/12/what-a-dslrs-cmos-sensor-looks-like-under-a-microscope/ http://petapixel.com/2013/02/12/what-a-dslrs-cmos-sensor-loo... I'd still like to get a link in support of the claim of significant benefit of lithography process improvement to the sensor sensitivity, unless it's about the smallest sensors (as in mobile phones or smaller) and very high pixel count.
- dzhiurgis 11y ago
  From what I've watched about CMOS sensors and I could be mistaken, the comparison could be similar to making your CPU registers smaller but ramping the frequency of how often you access hit them (which is akin to increased framerate). So the net amount of captured light is the same, but you have many more frames now. With sophisticated software (or onboard hardware) this can be reassembled to the same picture as well. And you are looking at this a bit wrong way. On mobile devices - your bottleneck is lens size, so you have to have smaller pixels. Now if your pixels are large, the register (I think they are called wells on CMOS sensors) has to pull in much more information at higher power requirements which introduces noise which you have to "mask" with even more photon energy? Again, I could be getting this totally wrong and of course it's best to have big lens with lots of pixels.