CCD Image Sensor Inventors Win $500,000 Award 125
saskboy writes "CCD inventors were honoured this week. According to CBC News, "Willard Boyle, a Canadian scientist who helped invent the light-sensitive chip, accepted (the prestigious Charles Stark Draper Prize) in the U.S. on Tuesday. Boyle and George Smith will share the $500,000 US award for the invention of the "Charge-Coupled Device (CCD), a light-sensitive component at the heart of digital cameras and other widely used imaging technologies," the U.S. National Academy of Engineering said." Those other devices include the Hubble Space Telescope, and orthoscopic medical instruments. "Boyle and Smith came up with the idea for the device while working at Bell Laboratories in 1969. 'It was after maybe an hour's work,' Boyle recalled. 'We went over to the blackboard and we had some sketching there. We went down to our models lab and made one.'""
Sweet... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sweet... (Score:2)
Re:Am I correct in assuming (Score:1)
Re:Favorite line from the article (Score:1)
Remember this (Score:5, Interesting)
Or maybe you're not aware that light sensitivity was considered a peculiar and irritating characteristic of some semiconductor memory. Not much of a problem inside an opaque case, unless nuclear decay or cosmic rays generate a photon...
Re:Remember this (Score:1)
Re:Remember this (Score:1)
Re:Remember this (Score:2)
Re: Remember this (Score:1)
Hmmm... ever heard of EPROMs? The kind of chips that used to hold firmware, BIOS software and the like before flash memory arrived on the market? Those chips with a transparent window in them? Program electrically (like flash, but slower), and erase by shining UV light on the chip. Even ordinary sunlight will do if you're patient (couple of weeks, UV lights specialized for
Re: Remember this (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Remember this (Score:1)
Pixel density limitations (Score:5, Funny)
Now empty the jar and fill it with bread. Once the jar is full, you can press down on the top of the bread and make more room. In fact, you can pretty much keep stuffing bread into the jar for quite a long time. Eventually you'll reach the saturation point and no new bread can be entered into the jar. However, the amount of bread in the jar is many times greater than the number of marbles which we just removed. There was less space between each piece of bread than there was between each marble because the bread is malleable whereas the marble requires a fixed size.
There's a limit to the pixel density achievable with CCDs. Once the pixelsites get too close together, they interfere with each other electrically and throw off the sensor. CCDs are a nice stopgap measure, but they aren't the bread in the example above.
Re:Pixel density limitations (Score:5, Funny)
The bread storage problem has been solved for quite a few years now, possibly longer than CCD's have been around. The marble storage problem is probably still a bit open ended, although less important as marbles have a significantly longer shelf life than bread.
Sorry... i don't think i had a point either.
Re:Pixel density limitations (Score:2)
How to optimally store your marbles [wikipedia.org]. Theoretically, of course. Don't you people read digg?
Re:Pixel density limitations (Score:1)
Re:Pixel density limitations (totally off-topic) (Score:1)
Re:Pixel density limitations (totally off-topic) (Score:2)
Anyway. It was used as an analogy for the mixing of (I think) ethanol and water - take 10cm^3 of ethanol, 10cm^3 of water, mix 'em together and you get a bit less than 20cm^3 of liquid resulting.
It must have been a fairly early exper
Re:Pixel density limitations (totally off-topic) (Score:4, Funny)
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.
So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up the remaining space. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous 'yes'.
The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the space between the sand particles. The students laughed.
Now, said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. "
"The golf balls are the important things - your family, your children, your health, your friends, your favourite passions - things that if everything else were lost, and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else - the small stuff.
"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take your partner out to dinner. Go out with friends. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the washing. Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented.The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of beers."
Re:Pixel density limitations (Score:1)
Re:Pixel density limitations (Score:2)
Re:Pixel density limitations (Score:1)
It can be retrofitted to hold some newer type of film but it would be the perfect digicam in disguise.
Re:Pixel density limitations (Score:1)
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Experi
Improving pixel density with image stabialization. (Score:2)
If you were to scan a seen, zoomed in, and then process it, you should be able to get a HUGE picture with a fairly small camera.
This process would also stabilize the image, blurs don't exist on sufficiently fast movie cameras.
So thinking along those lines, any "Fuzzy" scene (like ANY zoomed-in scene that I try to shoot with a hand-held) should be able to be filmed as a video, then processed into something with mu
Well deserved (Score:4, Interesting)
Having worked for a number of years in the optical astronomy field during the transition from photographic plates to CCD imaging I for one truly appreciate the CCD. No more baking plates in nitrogen and choosing the right emulsion for the wavelength of interest.
Now, the IR sensitivity was a different matter, played hob with the spectrograph we retrofitted with a CCD camera. First order IR overlapping second order blue.....
1969 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:1969 (Score:4, Funny)
Thanks, I've just realized I'm sufficiently old that my own kid could mod me down on Slashdot.
And this could happen without either of us even knowing it. Great.
Re:1969 (Score:1)
about time (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, there was the issue of JPEG patents... (Score:2)
Re:about time (Score:2)
Re:about time (Score:2)
Hehe kind of late (Score:1)
Re:Hehe kind of late (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hehe kind of late (Score:1)
(I know it's long, not my fault.)
And I noticed that someone replied to the parent's post confirming the fact that Bell labs holds the patent.
...not to mention... (Score:5, Interesting)
CCDs did more to revolutionize astronomy in the 20th century than the Hubble Space Telescope did. They enabled the HST, but also effectively multiplied the size of all ground-based telescopes by a factor of 10-- although it's not so simple as that, as CCDs provide a host of other advantages really making quantitative imaging possible.
CCDs were huge for astronomy. The "CCD revolution" in the 80's (at least 10 years before most people had really heard of digital cameras) made a big difference.
Re:...not to mention... (Score:2)
Yeah, that usually happens. Research equipment has a whole different level for acceptable component costs than consumer equipment.
One could argue that CCD's usage in telescopes gave them the money for the development needed to get the price down to what was needed for digital camera use. Then digital cameras allowed development to reach the point t
Re:...not to mention... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a well-timed story for me, since I'm at the controls of a 2.2-meter optical scope right now, with a 2048x2048 CCD as the main instrument for the first half of the night, and a 512x512 CCD on the guider camera.
CCDs are my friends!
Re:...not to mention... (Score:2)
Well, some infrared. But, yes, I've come to think of everything shorter than 1 micron as "optical" even though our eye can't see all of that.
Which 'scope are you at?
-Rob
Re:...not to mention... (Score:2)
I occasionally also stare at the sky over at this [keckobservatory.org] other place around the corner from the first one, but in a much less significant capacity. :(
We likes the big shiny toys, my preciousss...
Re:...not to mention... (Score:2)
Re:...not to mention... (Score:2)
The observer I'm working with for the first half of the night, on the other hand, is looking at a star formation region. In the second half, I'll have different observers, hunting for type 1A supernovae.
Re:...not to mention... (Score:2)
Re:...not to mention... (Score:2)
don't forget CMOS... (Score:2)
It's not as prevalent anymore; CMOS is gaining considerable ground in a lot of different imaging fields.
Canon, for example, uses CMOS sensors in all its digital SLRs; noise, power consumption, speed of "reading" the sensor (I think), and dynamic range are all much better. CMOS's only real technical downside is that there is a non-sensor component next to every sensor well. However, CMOS sensors are harder/more expensive to come by. They also aren
Re:don't forget CMOS... (Score:2)
The choice of which to use is usually dictated by other concerns like which goes better with an existing manufacturing line, or other electrical engineering issues.
Currently, most chips larger than 35mm are CCD. All the medium format backs I know use CCD versus CMOS (interesting fact..th
Re:don't forget CMOS... (Score:2)
Quite frankly I'm impressed with what Cannon did with its CMOS detectors. It must have a good on-board correction?
Re:...not to mention... (Score:1)
Totally agree, but there are areas where CCDs still cannot compete with photographic methods. Namely wide field imaging. Specifically I am thinking of schmidt cameras. Until they can grow a silicon wafer that big CCDs aren't going to compete. Think of the size of the UK Scmidt camera for instance, IIRC the film size is way beyond anything that can be made from a single silicon wafer. And it needs to be curved to conform to the focal plane.
Even on a smaller scale a 6 inch square photographic plate packs mo
Re:...not to mention... (Score:2)
Yeah (Score:4, Insightful)
Now it would require a "business case" before anyone would be allowed a moment to think about CCD image sensors, much less build them. Some rat fuck middle management asscrack would probably write the group up for "unauthorized use of business resources" and start drawing up requests for department-wide layoffs.
That's of course assuming brilliant people like these men who could "after maybe an hour's work, we went over to the blackboard and we had some sketching there. We went down to our models lab and made one" would get hired in the first place. They'd be declared "overqualified" or lacking "marketable skills" before they were even interviewed.
We were on the doorstep of the solar system almost 40 years ago. Now we're all parked in front of plasma televisions bought on 28% credit watching "reality shows." Talk about toilet-ramming the future. This is what happens when entire generations of education are wasted on purpose. What a fucking waste.
"When I was your age..." (Score:5, Insightful)
I honestly can't figure out if you're serious or not. Probably doesn't help that you were modded insightful- now you seem to be moderated funny, but I suspect you were not trying to be...
What a bunch of crap. You're buying partially into the romanticization of historical inventors, and ignoring the fact that you only really hear about the people who were NOT shut down, the projects that were not abandoned because of penny pinchers, etc.
Talking about the "good old days" when inventors just picked money from trees, never had to justify research, didn't struggle against powermongering and corporate politics etc...is a bunch of pure, complete, uneducated, knee-jerk bullshit.
Re:"When I was your age..." (Score:2)
No. I'm buying into present-day powdered-donut stuffing fatass-wedged hairpiece cheat fuck liar middle managers. Don't have to romanticize inventors. They're right there in TFA.
didn't struggle against powermongering and corporate politics etc
Wasn't anywhere NEAR as destructive as it is today. Not even on the map. Nice try.
Re:"When I was your age..." (Score:1, Flamebait)
I can't imagine why you'd ever have a negative relationship with your manager... or why you might have been fired.
Re:"When I was your age..." (Score:3, Insightful)
Not difficult when the manager is a lying cheat fuck.
or why you might have been fired
When you see near-perfect employees fired and physically shoved out of the building, being fired doesn't really matter any more. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with how good someone is at their job any more. It's all about greed, lying and more greed.
Re:"When I was your age..." (Score:2)
Sure the 'good old days' weren't as rosy as some make out - but they were still at least 100% more receptive to new ideas, invention and innovation than those today.
If you have a good idea today your best chance is to pursue it in your own time and hope to hell that someone somewhere doesn't think you have been unwise enough to agree that your soul is theirs 24 hou
Bitter, naïve or lucky - pick one (Score:2)
Sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you.
Mod insightful, not funny (Score:2)
It's like HP, their motto is "HP - Invent", that was 50 years ago, now they're a company that sells ink with region locked chips (this 'feature' may/may not be a reality... yet)
Re:Yeah (Score:2)
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
You're too kind. 'Wasted' implies a mere passive neglect, rather than 'subverted' which is more the truth.
You assume an educated population is desirable - bzzzt wrong, they want you as dumb as can be and easy to control. You're right, we passed that golden age up, smart and independent thinkers are not desirable in
a the new regime. Its just too - 'unpredictable'.
Nobody wants rogue minds working on their own, people who might not be 'on side'. They're scared. They're frightened shitless of progress, of technology, of people like us who might turn their little world on its head with a single daydream. Their way is to subvert technology, Einstein gives us e=mc2 and they figure out how to make bombs. These guys invent CCDs and they stick them on every street corner to spy on people.
Little exposes the malignant pathology of a person so much as the uses they seek in technology.
But don't cry for the plasma TV generation. They are actually happy, They relish their ignorance, it protects them and they will defend the right to be a dumbass to the hilt. That shiny box made in China means more to them than any idea, any morality, any person. We are in the minority, depressed and traumatised watching the silence of the lambs, powerless to help or inform. Sometimes I'd like to unlearn everything I know, take a job in the car wash and sit in front of a 56" expensive toy I don't own while I drink cheap beer, but it doesn't work that way, no turning back the hands of time.
please may I have a +5 funny mod too, you weak spineless cowards.
Re:Yeah (Score:3, Interesting)
But really, what moral advantage do you have over them? And how exactly would the world become a better place for them? As some other poster alread
Re:Yeah (Score:2)
Gee, let's see, what "moral advantage" does someone who thinks and works hard have over someone who refuses to think and relishes in ignorance and laziness. I don't know .. gosh .. this question is just so hard to answer.
</sarcasm>
Re:Yeah... Oh Yeah? Yeah... (Score:1)
You insensitive klahd... I'm sitting on a *sofa* and I happen to also be sitting behind *two* keyboards listening to a web streamed simulcast of a concert in New Jersey (3000 miles away in meatspace) on one Linux box while recording the Olympics broadcast on my other Linux box, posting on /. and kicking back post work, having some supper.
Y
Re:Yeah (Score:1)
You should have taken the Blue Pill ...
Re:Yeah (Score:2)
Who are "they"?
Re:Yeah (Score:2)
Re:Yeah (Score:1)
And technology really hasn't really changed any since 1969. I mean, apart from some new style sheets, Slashdot today is basically the same as it was back then, right?
How insightful!
larry
Re:Yeah (Score:2)
They existed, and their job was fighting for their people. General Motors fires 30,000 people now and nobody gives a shit. It's all the employee's fault, of course. They didn't have enough "marketable skills." General Motors firing 30,000 people in 1969 would have resulted in a national outrage that would have made history.
Well, wait a minute--if we haven't invented anything new since the 60s
Well we did invent $7000 televisions an
Re:Yeah (Score:2)
Corrected for inflation, TVs before the '60s costed a lot more than they do now, corrected for current money, they could be more than $20,000 (current money) for an average set then.
I haven't heard of 28% credit cards, I would think those would be going to the people that shouldn't ever have a credit card.
Re:Yeah (Score:3, Interesting)
Corrected for inflation, wages have plummeted in the last 30 years.
I haven't heard of 28% credit cards, I would think those would be going to the people that shouldn't ever have a credit card.
Like college students. No better way to fuck over somebody's finances than to bury them in debt before they even get a job. Give them $20,000 in student loans and $20,000 in 28% credit card debt and watch them fail. It's fun for the whole
Re:Yeah (Score:2)
Re:Yeah (Score:2)
Re:Yeah (Score:1)
"If Penzias & Wilson were doing satellite communication experiments in 2003, How much time would they be given to explain why their instrument was 2% off in it's readings ????"
The ovvious answer, which we all know would be: "Put a damned resistor in there and force it to zero and get on with your work !"
Orthoscopic? (Score:1)
Of course, that was some orthoscopic fix on Hubble!
Re:Soundfx4 is my name, these guys don't need mone (Score:3, Insightful)
My first thought on this article was.... (Score:2)
my second thought was how.....well, the scanner camera...
http://www.interaction.rca.ac.uk/alumni/02-04/mic
http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/text-demo-scanner-cam.
Years from now... (Score:1)
As to patents and payments... (Score:1)
Overlooked (Score:1, Funny)
Not just for looking out into space... (Score:5, Interesting)
This invention really contributed to keeping the Cold War from heating up - reconnaissance satellites equipped with this technology were very useful to ensuring all sides kept their ends of the bargain during various arms control treaties. Not to mention their usefulness in charting maps and letting us all see from a new perspective [google.com].
It's kind of funny when you think about it, but this little invention has broadened our understanding of the entire universe while helping prevent us from blowing each other up down here on earth at the same time. You just can't say that about many things. Great work, gentlemen. Great work.
Re:Not just for looking out into space... (Score:1)
Great work, gentlemen. Great work.
Re:Not just for looking out into space... (Score:2)
True, but... (Score:2)
The CCD wasn't the only imaging technology to be sure, but it made big contributions.
Thanks for your comment!
Wait a second... (Score:1)
500k$? They got short-changed. (Score:2)
Only $500,000? (Score:1)
CMOS Inventor? (Score:1)
Comparison and history of both types of chips. [dalsa.com]
Re:ahem... (Score:1)
Re:ahem... (Score:1)
The world is bigger than the USA you know.
Lousy troll (Score:1)
You score 3 out of 10 on the troll-o-meter ... way too obvious, but bonus points because you still somehow got quite a bunch of replies.
Re:What did they use before? (Score:1)
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761559903_2/T