Image sensors are becoming part of everyday life through applications in consumer products, security and surveillance systems, toys and games, medical and automotive systems. Thanks to their versatility, the market for semiconductor based image sensors is enjoying phenomenal growth. According the Gartner, the image sensor market was US$ 5.1 billion in 2004 and is expected to grow to US$ 9.8 billion by 2008 which represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18%.

The image senor used in most of today's consumer digital cameras is a semiconductor chip known as a charge-coupled device (CCD). But CCDs are under threat from complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensors, which can be made far more cost-effectively. The CMOS sensors have many advantages such as higher quality at lower cost, smaller size, most importantly lower power dissipation, which is crucial in battery-powered mobile applications. Because of these distinct advantages in mobile systems, the CMOS image sensors represented 70 % of total 264 million camera phones sold in 2004 worldwide and is expected to take 85 % of the total 745 million camera phone market in 2008, according to Jefferies & Company.

With its mission to be a worldwide leader in imaging applications, Pixelplus strives to provide quality CMOS image sensors at competitive price in the market. Leveraging our experience in CCD technology, Pixelplus produces some of the best CMOS image sensors based on Crystal-Image and CameraSoC technologies. The Crystal-Image technology utilizes the unique 3-transistor pixel structure to pick up the advantage of the conventional 3-transitor as well as 4-transitor structures. The CameraSoC technology incorporates proprietary image signal processing (ISP) algorithms to reinforce the image quality close to the real life picture. These technologies are at the heart of our CMOS image sensor products. For more info on Pixelplus products, please click here.