Back in the early 2000s, Sigma -- a company usually known in the photography community as a lens manufacturer -- released a new type of camera sensor named the Foveon X3. This sensor technology was first patented in 1999 by a company called Foveon, Inc. (later acquired in 2008 by Sigma) and featured an innovative color perception technology: a 3-layer stack of photosensitive diodes.
Sigma has announced that it is currently on stage two of three in prototyping its new full-frame Foveon sensor. The company says that if Stage 3 goes well, it can start to verify its mass producibility.
Sigma's CEO Kazuto Yamaki has published an update regarding the Foveon X3 1:1:1 sensor and camera that was delayed in February of last year after the sensor it was working with could not go into mass production due to a critical flaw.
What's the use of an image sensor that's 12 times more color sensitive than the human eye? We're not entirely sure, but thanks to a team of researchers at Universities of Granada, Spain and Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy you may someday get to try it out and find out for yourself.
Researchers at those two universities are using "Transverse Field Detector" technology to distinguish 36 individual color channels without any need for a filter, making it 12-times more color sensitive than standard Red/Green/Blue sensors and the human eye both.
Sigma took a unique approach when it worked together with its sensor subsidiary, Foveon Inc., to build the newest version of Foveon sensor found in the DP Quattro camera.
Using technology that captures light simultaneously across three separate layers of sensors -- one each for blue, red, and green -- Sigma claims that, while smaller, the sensor is actually capable of out-resolving a 36-megapixel full frame sensor similar to those found in the Nikon D800E and Sony A7r.
It's been a little while since we've seen fit to report on a rumor. Most of what has passed through the rumor mill of late has either not been significant enough, or only worth linking out to. This news, however, caught our eye: it seems Sony is working on a 'non-Bayer' sensor that might appear in cameras as early as late 2015.