Fujifilm Announces Organic Sensor Tech Update with Panasonic

Last Updated on 02/17/2017 by Chris Gampat

It’s been years since Fujifilm and Panasonic teamed up on developing an organic CMOS sensor, and over the years the teams have taken turns in releasing updates on the development of the sensor technology. This week Fujifilm released a new update on the technology, noting they are making strides towards mass production of the sensor for a wide variety of applications.

Interestingly, though not surprisingly, they have not mentioned any plans to use the sensor in an imaging (ie camera) device as of yet. But with new tech like this companies will often test them out in less risky products before throwing them into production on more advanced tech, like a new camera.

The significance of this announcement mostly has to do with their temperature controls. There had been issues, reported previously, with the organic sensor overheating. While they did not say it outright, a big note in their release today was regarding temperature management, so many are thinking maybe the temp issues have now been resolved or are on their way to be.

So why should you care about this organic sensor? What advantages may it have over a traditional CMOS sensor? Well, according to previous releases, this sensor is capable of crazy amounts of dynamic range, which as we know is only a good thing. The other big advantage? The potential for a global shutter, which would eliminate things like rolling shutter and would allow the whole sensor to be exposed at the same time – removing the need for a mechanical one entirely.

This is why so many are watching this sensor development with interest: the potential for future cameras is incredible. Unfortunately, this announcement fails to bring us any closer to that reality in the near term. However progress is good, and it will be interesting to see what other uses this sensor tech could have before it makes it into future X Series cameras.