Sharp announces 1/1.8" CCD sensor with 4 Million Pixels

From the folks at digitalkamera.de comes word of Sharp's new CCD imager.

Japanese electronics concern Sharp has just announced for November of this year the first examples of a new 1/1.8" CCD sensor (including chip) with a total of 4.2 million light- sensitive elements. Since the CCD sensor is of standard size (the same size as 3.34 megapixel sensors of already available digital cameras), only the electronics will have to be adapted for the next generation of cameras.

The Sharp CCD sensor with the "melodious" product name RJ21R3BAOPT physically has 4.2 million square pixels (2,530 x 1,659 pixels), of which around 4 million (2,452 x 1,634 pixels) are effectively usable. The signal-to-noise ratio is -88 dB. Since the CCD sensor --despite higher resolution--has the same physical size (1/1.8") as 3.34 megapixel CCDs currently in use in digital cameras, it will be unnecessary to recalculate the optics, among other things. Consequently, digital camera manufacturers could cheaply and simply produce new 4 megapixel digital cameras based on current models.