Is the CCD sensor better than CMOS?
If yes, why CCD sensors are used on consumer (compact) cameras and CMOS on high-end, professional cameras?
Depends on who your ask and what is important to person asking the question.
CCD stands for Charged Couple Device. CMOS stands for Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor. Big acronyms that don’t mean much to the camera user. The basics of the technology is not really important. The end results are what camera users want.
CCD is an based on an older technology. CMOS is newer and more development is done on the basic technology by major high tech players like Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, and other semiconductor makers along with the semiconductor Fabrication equipment manufactures like Canon & Nikon & Applied Materials.
This means that the equipment development costs are spread over more players thus lowering the price to the end user. This sounds like a contridiction since CCD’s are use for lower end cameras.
CCD are used in lower end camera because the wafer fabrication plants exist and have been in use for a long time, thus the cost is lower for the low end. To develope new CCD technology requires a major investment in wafer fabrication equipment and even new equipment design. This is a very costly proposition. We are talking about Billions of dollars needed to develope and new wafer fab. Even more billions if you are trying to develope new equipment. None of the digital camera companies can afford to do that on their own. The development cost is written off against the High end products where the ASP (Average Selling Price) can absorb the cost and the buyers are willing to pay for the extra performance/features. This is the techonolgy trickle down method.
Sensor development costs is what drove Konica-Minolta out of the camera business and why Sony needed a High-end Camera line. As sensor get a little bit bigger they get many times more expensive. Bigger sensor means bigger chance for random defects to creap into the manufacturing process and lower the yield of good sensors per wafer.
Simplified example: Let’s say that a single wafer costs $1000 dollars. There are 500 sensors on a wafer. That would put the cost per sensor at $2 each. If the number of bad die per wafer is 10% then the cost per wafer is $2.22. If the number of sensors goes down bacause of increase in size to 100 then the cost per sensor is now $10 each. With increase size come lower yield so lets say the yield is now 20% now the cost per sensor is $12.50. As you can see an increase in size can lead to an increase in cost thus limiting the product that the bigger sensor can go into to a more costly item.
To answer your question: Which is better?
To the high end camera user CMOS. Bigger sensors, more pixels, bigger & clear more detailed pictures.
To the Low end camera user CCD. Lower cost, period.
To the Highend camera maker CMOS. Lower capital equipment accquisition costs for the wafer fab. Higher end sensors can move more quickly down to lower end products replacing CCD sensors, thus getting a better marketing advantage over the competition in the MegaPixel Wars.
To the owner of a CCD wafer fab, CCD of course. As the high end moves to CMOS the cost per sensor will drop even lower for CCD thus allowing them to use CCD in more different products other than just digital camera. CCD’s are the basis for video cameras.
Let’s see how a CMOS-Sensor in a Canon DLSR works 1/2
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