A CMOS, roll out a 100 billion chip market

As the dividends from mobile consumption decline, mobile manufacturers strive for the high-end market. From lenses to chips, screens, and batteries, all aspects of performance have been extensively upgraded. However, advancements in various aspects have reached a plateau. Eventually, smartphone manufacturers have turned their attention back to the camera. Smartphone camera bumps are becoming more prominent, and it has been 13 years since the groundbreaking product iPhone 4 was released.

The pixel count has increased from two million to tens of millions, pushing the limits of a single lens. Consequently, the number of lenses on a single phone has grown. From dual cameras to multiple cameras (triple cameras, quadruple cameras), numerous dazzling terms have emerged: DSLR-level pixels, wide-angle and ultra-wide-angle lenses, adjustable aperture, 3x optical zoom, periscope-style telephoto lenses, one-inch sensors, and so on.

Manufacturers are increasingly collaborating with renowned imaging brands such as Hasselblad, Leica, Zeiss, and Sony.

Most consumers are willing to pay for camera features, so turning smartphones into cameras has become a move born out of necessity for manufacturers in the face of the increasing homogenization of smartphone innovation.

In contrast, recently obsolete CCD technology, a type of card camera equipped with a CCD image sensor, has experienced a resurgence. A wave of nostalgia for CCD, characterized by a preference for the old over the new, has emerged. CCD, once considered "electronic waste," has become a new favorite among young people and fashion enthusiasts.

The ancestor of smartphone CMOS, CCD, changed the way we observe and record the world. However, its inventor did not receive the Nobel Prize in Physics until 40 years later in 2009. It can be said that without the progressive development of CCD, CMOS would not have existed. The rising star CMOS has taken over the baton from CCD and is heading towards a more distant future.

By reading this article, you will gain an understanding of:

1、The past and present of CMOS.

2、How inconspicuous sensors can explode into a billion-dollar market.

01

Digital Camera's "Foundation": From CCD to CMOS

Image sensors, CCD, and CMOS—can you distinguish between them?

This is the projection captured by the early CCD image sensor: "S." In 1969, Bell Labs invented the Charge-Coupled Device (CCD), which could convert optical images into electronic signals, laying the foundation for digital cameras.

This is the "S" recorded by a CCD in 1972, the year that SONY engineers successfully completed the projection of the letter "S" with a 64-pixel CCD; Source: Network

In the early days, CCD performance was limited, capable only of capturing brightness information, hence restricted to recording black and white images.

The "Traitorous Eight" left Bell Labs and arrived in Silicon Valley. Shortly after the release of Intel's first eight-bit processor, the 8008, in 1973, the world's first commercial Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) was introduced by Fairchild Semiconductor.

In 1975, the "Film King" Kodak utilized the Fairchild 201100 CCD to create the first digital camera. This camera had 1.3 million pixels, eliminating the need for film. The CCD captured images, but it couldn't store them. To address this, it used random-access memory (RAM) to capture image data, which was then transferred to a cassette tape.

来源：网络

Kodak became one of the earliest players in CCD technology. Unfortunately, despite Kodak's significant profits from film photography, the company decided to halt CCD research and innovation when it discovered that digital cameras did not require film. This refusal to adapt led to the squandering of a winning hand.

Sony hopped onto the digital camera bandwagon, initiating the CCD project in 1973 and manufacturing a chip supporting 110,000 pixels by 1978. The MAVICA camera, introduced in 1981, became the world's first commercially available digital camera. In 1985, Sony released the first portable CCD camcorder, the M8.

This wave of technological innovation rapidly swept through Japan, with Japanese companies aggressively entering the global digital camera market. By the 21st century, Sony, Fuji, Kodak, Philips, Panasonic, and Sharp were among the six manufacturers capable of mass-producing CCD-related products.

In the late 1990s, CCD found applications beyond consumer-level digital cameras, being widely used in professional electronic imaging, space exploration, X-ray imaging, and other research fields.

As CCD technology matured, its drawbacks gradually surfaced: complex manufacturing processes, incompatibility with standard processes, high production costs, large size, and high power consumption. The Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor emerged as the biggest winner after CCD.

These two types of image sensors, CCD and CMOS, essentially correspond to the TTL and CMOS processes, respectively.

CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) follows the MOS structure (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor), featuring an array of neatly arranged capacitors (MOS capacitors) to convert photons into electrons for image capture. On the other hand, CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) follows the MOSFET (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor) structure.

CCD sensors passively collect data and require external voltage to move the charge in each pixel, while CMOS sensors actively collect data, amplifying and outputting the charge generated by the photosensitive diode directly through transistors.CCD outputs analog signals for subsequent processing, while CMOS sensors can directly output processed data; Source: COVENTOR.

These two different acquisition methods make the most noticeable difference in power consumption between them. Besides, there are differences in image quality, processing speed, and other aspects, as detailed in the following chart:

In reality, CMOS technology has laid the most robust foundation for low-power integrated circuits, making it the currently predominant chip technology worldwide. As machine vision systems transition from traditional board-level designs to small intelligent systems, CMOS processes can keep pace with Moore's Law, achieving higher chip integration and lower power consumption.

In the early years, image sensors were not manufactured using CMOS processes. It wasn't until the late 1980s that the University of Edinburgh successfully developed the world's first single-chip CMOS image sensor. In 1997, the UK-based VLSIVersion company achieved the commercialization of CMOS image sensors for the first time.

In 2000, Sony successfully developed its first CMOS image sensor (IMX001). However, at that time, CMOS sensor drawbacks in terms of image quality and noise were still significant, preventing an immediate challenge to CCD's dominant position.

02

Inconspicuous Sensors,

Surging into a Billion-Dollar Market

However, with the progress and maturity of CMOS technology and the continuous reduction in costs, the prices of digital cameras have truly started to become more affordable, while CCD's development has entered a "bottleneck period." After 2010, CMOS sensors have become the mainstream technology, not completely replacing CCD but largely supplanting it. CCD sensors are now retained only in high-end professional medium-format equipment.

Behind CMOS becoming the mainstream photography technology, a formidable force is surging. Born almost simultaneously with digital cameras in 1999-2000, smartphones have become a powerful contender.

As smartphones evolved from basic phones to intelligent devices, incorporating enhanced camera functionalities and continually upgrading camera pixel counts to improve the photography experience, they have gradually eroded the market share of digital cameras.

In 2008, Nokia introduced the classic N96, equipped with a 5-megapixel camera. During that year, Nokia sold a staggering 460 million mobile phones globally, a feat that not only surpassed many camera manufacturers but also posed a challenge to subsequent mobile phone companies. For a period, Nokia became the world's largest "camera manufacturer."

The year 2010 marked a crucial turning point for both mobile phones and digital cameras. With the release of the iPhone 4, featuring a 5-megapixel rear camera, and enhanced user experience and image quality through software interfaces and optimized algorithms, the landscape of mobile phone photography took a significant leap forward. Android smartphone manufacturers shifted their focus from the megapixel race to areas such as lenses, processors, and optimization algorithms.

It's worth noting that from 2003 to 2010, the shipments of digital cameras experienced consistent growth each year. However, after reaching its peak with 121 million units shipped in 2010, the shipments started declining rapidly. Smartphones soon surpassed digital cameras in shipments and left them far behind.

The steeply rising demand for smartphones became a lucrative opportunity in the eyes of sensor manufacturers.

CMOS image sensors have made "chip cameras" increasingly viable. The three advantages of "low production cost," "low technical threshold," and "low power consumption" have become irreplaceable for CMOS sensors.

The integration of single-chip functionality, enabling large-scale mass production of chips, has significantly reduced production costs. Digital lenses in devices such as smartphones and computers have become smaller, more energy-efficient, faster in imaging, and more affordable. Today, even a tiny smartphone image sensor can achieve pixel counts in the hundreds of millions, contributing to the rapid proliferation of consumer electronics.

In 2011, attention was drawn to data from numerous professional photographers and photography enthusiasts. The data revealed that within just one year of its release, the 5-megapixel iPhone 4 surpassed the 12-megapixel Nikon D90, released three years prior, becoming the most popular capture device on Flickr.

The surpassing of the iPhone 4 marked the gradual acceptance of mobile photography by professional photographers. By this time, the sales of digital cameras had decreased by 29% over the past five years, and traditional camcorder sales had also declined by 21%.

Mobile lens sensors have evolved from CCD sensors with a few hundred thousand pixels to 200 million pixels CMOS sensors, achieving a qualitative leap in imaging performance and driving rapid market growth. Despite a slowdown in consumer demand for smartphones around 2020, the smartphone camera sector remains substantial and continues to show growth.

The number of cameras in mid-to-low-end smartphones has rapidly increased, with new models continuously upgrading to include four cameras. Once the quantity reaches a certain level, the focus shifts to performance comparisons. Even low-end models are entering the high-pixel domain, where formerly high-end configurations are no longer exclusive but are now available in mid-to-low-end devices.

According to market research firm Counterpoint Research, in the second half of 2022, the average number of cameras per smartphone was 3.9, slightly decreasing to 3.8 in the first half of 2023. Although this is a notable figure, the smartphone market is expected to recover after a year of inventory reduction in 2024. The smartphone camera module market is projected to resume growth, with shipments expected to increase by 3% year-on-year to approximately 4.171 billion units.

Looking back at the CCD and CMOS markets, the gap between the two is widening.

Data indicates that the global CCD image sensor market reached $1.74 billion in 2022, and it is projected to reach $2.68 billion by 2031, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.9% during the forecast period of 2023-2031. In 2020, the global CMOS image sensor market was valued at $20.725 billion, and it is expected to reach $39.624 billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 8.6% during the forecast period. According to Mordor Intelligence, the market size of CMOS image sensors in 2023 is $21.33 billion, and it is projected to reach $30.08 billion by 2028.

The market share of CMOS image sensors has far surpassed that of CCD and has experienced unprecedented rapid growth.

来源：growth market reports

来源：growth market reports

In addition to the largest market share in the consumer electronics sector, the application scope of CMOS image sensors also includes automotive, aerospace, medical devices, and military equipment. Currently, the CIS (CMOS Image Sensor) market is dominated by companies such as Sony Semiconductor, STMicroelectronics, Samsung Electronics, OmniVision (OV), and ON Semiconductor. Among them, the top three manufacturers, Sony, Samsung, and OV, collectively account for over 70% of the market share.

CCD, aside from its dominant role in consumer electronics, also finds applications in areas such as security and surveillance, medical imaging, and automotive transportation. The demand for CCD is still growing, especially in industrial vision where there is an increasing requirement for image clarity and noise resistance. However, the development of autonomous driving and CMOS technology is constraining the growth of the CCD market.

Currently, the primary application scenarios for CCD and CMOS are still in consumer electronics. However, the rise and widespread use of smartphones have fully demonstrated the market value of CMOS, while CCD has taken a backseat, continuing to play a role in high-end imaging applications.

03

Conclusion:

CCD, constituting a smaller portion of the image sensor market, faces challenges in introducing new consumer-grade products, whether it's the resurgence of retro compact cameras or high-end cameras with a hefty price tag. CMOS has risen to dominance, with smartphones taking over the photography scene in limited spaces. This shift has not only brought down the cost of photography, making it more accessible, but has also driven advancements in CMOS technology. Whether in digital cameras, automobiles, robotics, drones, or AR/VR applications, CMOS is thriving, and its bright days are expected to continue in the future.