Electronics Production |
CCDs lose out in Image Sensor Market in 2010
The light may be fading for Charge Coupled Device (CCD) image sensors as digital cameras, their principal application, switch to a less expensive and more efficient rival technology: the Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) sensor, states iSuppli.
In the total market for image sensors—devices that convert an optical image into an electrical signal—the unit share of CCD sensors continues to decrease in 2010 compared to that of the competing CMOS technology.
Of the total 1.7 billion units forecasted for the image sensor market this year, CCDs will account for a roughly 9.8% share, down from 11.4% in 2009, the market researcher states. And while the decrease in unit share is slight, the trend appears to be irreversible, with CCD sensors to make up only 4.7% of the market by 2014.
In contrast, the CMOS image sensor market will expand its unit share of the market to 90.2% this year, up from 88.6% in 2009. The increase is borne on the back of growing demand from equipment like cameras in mobile handsets, video conferencing and automotive driver-assist applications.
The migration to CMOS from CCD will continue unabated for point-and-shoot cameras. By next year, the proportion of point-and-shoot models using CMOS will climb to 24%, up from 14% in 2009. The shift to CMOS among DSLR cameras is occurring even much faster: By 2014, fully 99% of DSLR models will be based on CMOS sensors.
