Toshiba and Sony Execute Definitive Agreement.
The Nagasaki Technology Center
On April 1 the Nagasaki Technology Center will be officially transferred from Toshiba to Sony. The purchase price is 53 billion yen. The acquisition should help Sony to increase the production capacity for wafers for CCD and CMOS sensors from about 25,000 to about 50,000 units per year. They will produce Exmor and Exmor-R sensors for both mobile phones and digital cameras.
Let’s hope this will help Sony to shorten the release time for some of their products (See A77 and the new fullframe cameras).
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Via Sony.net
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Recent comments
Comment from Maveric19: He might be talking about the lack of av...
Comment from b shaw: @Andrea
regarding 'release time for s...- Comment from b shaw: @Sky_walker
I agree with you. I like...
Comment from Vlad: Wow. Way to be off-topic!...
Drew
2 years ago |This good news… Hopefully this will prevent another a55 fiasco. I can see it now… A77 is released with rave reviews along side nikons d300s replacement, but both use the same sensor…
Geir
2 years ago |a55 fiasco? The highest rated alpha mount consumer camera Sony have ever produced? Probably the best selling as well. If that was a fiasco, god knows what the others would be called.
pnpbios
2 years ago |He probably means how amazon is perpetually out of stock.
Maveric19
2 years ago |He might be talking about the lack of avaibility. The basically sold out in 3 days I believe.
ben
2 years ago |isn’t it increses from 25,000 to about 50,000 units per month ,not for year?
Sky_walker
2 years ago |Bad news… if it keeps going like that the Sony will become the monopolist on the sensor-production market, especially with new huge factory that’s going to be released soon… and the monopole is never good >_>
Kodak sensor retired, Toshiba sensor bought, Pentax moved to Sony sensors, (soon) Leica moving to Sony sensors… who next?
alex
2 years ago |best selling camera, does not mean best camera..a lot of people think that EVF and SLT will improve their photographic skills, i bet the engineers at sony (who are definetely not photographers) think the same..after peeking at some flickr photostreams from various SLT-adept-gearheads, i can make the conclusion, that none of the slt´s did not improve their photographs..most of it was actually soccermum-rubbish or unsharp snapshots from people, babies,or holiday-snaps what i could even make with an old school olympus 35mm crappy-P&S from the seventies without EVF, PDAF or what so ever..
oy yeah, you can film with the SLT´s..that´s a big plus..and then you can show to everybody where you made that short piece of film on google earth..sorry,that i am not one of the many who gets a rockhard d#ck on this techy-stuff..
alex
2 years ago |i meant did not improve ofcourse..LOL
pancanikonpus
2 years ago |then new sony camera might not suitable for you.
Sky_walker
2 years ago |“best selling camera, does not mean best camera.” – and… to what are you referring? I haven’t told a word about cameras, nor the SLT.
knurd
2 years ago |What does this have to do with the article? They talk about sensors and buying out the factory. You may want to read the article again or save your SLT bashing for the next a55 review post.
Vlad
2 years ago |Wow. Way to be off-topic!
pancanikonpus
2 years ago |nikon
Sky_walker
2 years ago |Nikon buys Sony sensors for ages – it’s nothing new. I’m just saying about recent events.
pnpbios
2 years ago |Canon is very proud of their sensors.
Sky_walker
2 years ago |Yes… and sadly that’s only real competition in large sensor market at the moment as far as I can see (or maybe someone can lead me out of mistake? Please…. no, Olympus does not count, they are for me the mid-size sensor developer, but… it’s just a matter of definition)
Edgars
2 years ago |Cmn Sky_Walker, Sony is far from dominance in sensor production market. Did you know about companies such as Aptina, Omnivision and Samsung?
http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2010/02/cmos-image-sensors-technologies-markets.html
john
2 years ago |From what i saw at the Aptina site they only make 1 (ONE) APS-C sensor
Omnivision? none
Lots of sensor manufacturers out there but only a hand full make larger APS-C size and up.
Cell phones and compact cameras probably outnumber DSLR’s 100 to 1
Sky_walker
2 years ago |Jep, john is right.
But there’s some good point in it too, or even two: new resources mean more R&D spent on large sensors – so we get better stuff more quickly. And perhaps the hole in market will encourage other companies to try developing APS-C sensors. (omni-vision – I’m looking at you!)
freeze
2 years ago |Please use a CCD sensor in the A77…please!!!
AVESTA
2 years ago |I have been saying this for years now…
I can’t stand these crappy cmos sensors. We need to get back to Super HAD CCDs
Rob
2 years ago |Minolta was first out of the gate with autofocus, but didn’t have the wherewithall or competitive nature to push their advantage and as a result lost market share and went extinct. Sony won’t suffer from either of those failings, and will also make sure they stay out front by controlling the rate of change and dissemination of technology.
SonyA77
2 years ago |“Minolta was first out of the gate with autofocus, but didn’t have the wherewithall or competitive nature to push their advantage and as a result lost market share and went extinct. ”
Actually you don’t know your Minolta history
In 1991/2 Honeywell took Minolta to court for infringing Honeywell auto-focus patents and won 128 million USD. That’s what killed Minolta’s progress, I don’t think they ever recovered.
b shaw
2 years ago |@Sky_walker
I agree with you. I like competition in the marketplace because complete domination slows progress. The good news is that Sony has a regular practice of buying/licensing technology from other companies, including some innovative companies. I just hope there are enough niche players who can provide innovating concepts to drive improvements. We’ll have to see.
b shaw
2 years ago |@Andrea
regarding ‘release time for some of their products’. For Sony, most of their product development priorities are a management decision, it’s not directly related to technology or capacity. That is, management decides which products get developed first with their current or planned capacity.