Super CCD

Based on more than 70 years of photographic experience, Fujifilm recognizes the importance of resolution, sensitivity and dynamic range as factors that determine overall image quality. The first Generation Super CCD introduced by Fujifilm in 2000, aimed for a balance of enhanced performance factors. The second Generation Super CCD, introduced in 2001, offered further enhanced resolution, while the third Generation Super CCD successfully boasted sensitivity. Now, the fourth Generation Super CCD HR offers significantly enhanced resolution, while the new Super CCD SR delivers greatly expanded dynamic range.

The Super CCD SR incorporates both large, high-sensitivity S-pixels and smaller R-pixels for expanded dynamic range. By combining information from both of these sensor elements, the Super CCD SR is able to deliver an expanded dynamic range along with high sensitivity.

Super CCD getting more super all the time.

Fujifilm was presented with the 2001 Walter Kosonocky Award for outstanding achievement in image sensor technology for the development of the Super CCD. The successful development of the Super CCD, a CCD with drastically improved performance, can be attributed to a new pixel shape and arrangement. The Super CCD produces a higher resolution, increased dynamic range and a better signal-to-noise ratio, all vital elements in the colour and quality of digital pictures. The development of analog/digital LSI technologies with new built-in signal-processing algorithms maximizes the potential of the Super CCD's capabilities.

The digital camera market is growing at a rapid pace, with Fujifilm giving a strong impetus with our super megapixel quality camera models, along with more affordable and easy-to-use entry-level models with megapixel capabilities. Compared with the digital cameras of 1995, the number of pixels in the present-day CCD has increased approximately ten-fold. While a larger number of pixels have led to higher image resolution, any further pixel increase is known to adversely affect the sensitivity, S/N ratio and dynamic range, since the size of each pixel becomes increasingly smaller. The Super CCD offers solutions to such problems and further contributes to improved image quality for digital photography.

The Super CCD, with its pixel shape and arrangement, offers a number of advantages that overcome the limits posed by a conventional CCD.

Here are some of the outstanding characteristics:

• The octagonal shape of the photodiode and the honeycomb pixel arrangement has dramatically improved space efficiency for the photodiode located in each sensor site. This contributes a host of additional benefits, such as higher sensitivity, higher S/N ratio, and wider dynamic range, compared with a conventional CCD with the same number of pixels. The area of the photodiode in the 1/2-inch Super CCD with two million pixels is about 1.6 times as large as the area offered in the conventional 1/2-inch CCD with two million pixels, and the area of the photodiode in the 1/2-inch Super CCD with three million pixels is about 2.3 times as large as the area offered in the conventional 1/2-inch CCD with three million pixels. In other words, the difference in the area of the photodiode is more pronounced with a larger number of pixels. The larger area of the photodiode proportionately improves the sensitivity, S/N ratio and dynamic range.
• The honeycomb pixel arrangement better suits the distribution of spatial frequencies of image data in nature as well as idiosyncrasies inherent in human vision. Compared with the conventional CCD, the Super CCD can increase the effective number of pixels in use 1.6 times. (Example: The Super CCD with two million pixels can produce an image quality superior to a conventional CCD with three million pixels.)
• The honeycomb pixel arrangement, combined with over-sampling signal processing technologies, allows digital zooming with little image quality deterioration.
• The honeycomb pixel-arrangement allows skipped readout of image data without sacrificing image quality, thus offering high-quality, full-motion video output.
• Unlike a conventional CCD with progressive scanning capabilities that requires a complex structure, the structurally simpler Super CCD can easily be adapted to function as a digital camera equipped only with an electronic shutter.
• The Super CCD can save electric power because it generates high-resolution images with fewer photodiodes.