Masaaki Komiya, the engineer who headed the image sensor development team explains the various improvements that made the new Live MOS sensor possible.
"With the Live MOS sensor, we embedded the photodiodes deep in the silicon to eliminate the impact of noise produced on the board surface.
By reducing the white spots due to dead pixels and the graininess that tends to be noticeable when shooting under low light, we made it possible to shoot clear images in any light.
To increase image stability even more, we integrated the chip integrated into the flexible board to minimize contact resistance due to signal exchanges and wiring.
And finally, we were able to eliminate a ceramic package, which in turn enabled us to make the board thinner and also helped improve heat radiation.
Actually, all of this was made possible by 'bare chip' technology we developed for use in cell phone image pickup modules."

"For the E-410 and E-510, we tuned up the Live MOS sensor to 10 megapixels to deal with the trend towards increased lens definition.
As a result, the new sensor can capture an image with much greater detail than can a sensor with 7 or 8 megapixels.
The resulting definition and imaging performance is so high that there's no degradation even if the picture is enlarged to the size of a newspaper.
The Live MOS sensor is capable of reproducing natural colors without complicated signal processing and its spectral sensitivity is very close to that of the human eye.
In addition, since it has been optimized to work with the image processing system, it enables richer gradation expressions and even higher picture quality.
Needless to say, we made this sensor future-proof, making sure that it will be able to handle even more pixels in the future."