51¶¯Âþ

Technology

Cheap naked chips snap a perfect picture

By Paul Marks

7 October 2009

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Cheap as chips

(Image: Justin Guariglia/NGS/Getty)

HOW can image sensors – the most complicated and expensive part of a digital camera – be made cheaper and less complex? Easy: take the lid off a memory chip and use that instead.

As simple as it sounds, that pretty much sums up a device being developed by a team led by , of the Technical University of Delft, in the Netherlands. In a paper presented at an , Japan, this week, the team say that their so-called “gigavision” sensor will pave the way for cellphones and other inexpensive gadgets…

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