| Tearing down the Nikon D5200Just yesterday at CES 2013 Nikon announced the US availability of a new premium-level consumer DSLR camera, the D5200.
When compared to the high level of integration on a single board that one finds in a typical smart phone a DSLR is a complex system of individual parts. If you scroll through the pictures at the right, you can see why we are are amazed that they can be manufactured at all – without having large numbers of devices being RMAd. But we digress, this teardown is about the silicon inside. First, the key features of the premium consumer-level DSLR camera:
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| Summary of key design wins catalogedThe big chip of note is Nikon EXPEED 3. It is a package-on-package configuration featuring Samsung K4B4G3146 4 Gb DDR3 DRAM on top. The EXPEED device is fabricated by Fujitsu and is a big piece of silicon at 8.7 mm x 9.4 mm.
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Other devices catalogedAll these boards are not the most advanced, tightly packed 10-12 layer types needed in a more highly integrated handheld device and have a lot of uncatalogued passive parts. Here is the key silicon, with Rohm being a key winner:
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| Toshiba image sensor found insideIn our recent technology blog entry on full-frame format image sensors, we speculated on the possibility of new entrants in the FF CIS space. What we didn’t expect was a new entrant into the APS-C game with Toshiba winning the primary CIS socket in the Nikon D5200 (full report details the evidence).
Why is it a surprise to see Toshiba? If you had to pick a new vendor for Nikon APS-C class sockets you would likely pick Aptina.Aptina has the design wins in the Nikon 1 system cameras (1” format V1, J1, V2), and it has previously marketed an APS-C device. The MT9H004 is a 16 Mp sensor employing Aptina’s dual conversion gain approach as part of its DR-Pix platform. The device is intended for use in APS-C class DSLR and MILC applications, but we haven’t seen a design win for it yet. Due to the existing relationship between Aptina and Nikon, you would expect that the 24.1 Mp sensor for the D5200 would have been developed by Aptina. |
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Toshiba has publicly announced its strategy to aggressively pursue the mobile imaging space, with a target of 30% market share by 2015. So we know it is backing image sensor technology within its semiconductor group. However, it has not broadly promoted interest in the APS-C space, and we were pleasantly surprised to see this disruptive event. We’ve typically found Nikon to use either its own APS-C designs (devices fab’d by Renesas) or Sony sensors. Adding Toshiba in to the mix makes for quite the assortment of silicon vendors used by Nikon.
Finally, our preliminary analysis shows another twist to the picture in that Toshiba are using an advanced Cu fab to manufacture the new device. This is still a rarity, as we’ve only ever seen Samsung commit a Cu fab to APS-C. We expect that an increase in DSLR and MILC resolution will drive others there eventually. Time will tell what the camera review sites have to say about the D5200s performance, but until then congratulations to Toshiba.
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Company |
# of Pixel |
Pixel Metallization |
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Canon |
3 |
Al |
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Foveon |
4 |
Al |
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Nikon |
3 |
Al |
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Samsung |
3 |
Cu |
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Sony |
3 |
Al |
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Toshiba |
4 |
Cu |
APS-C Format CMOS Image Sensors Analyzed by Chipworks
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Analysis available on devices in this Teardown
Toshiba HEZ1 APS-C CMOS Image Sensor Imager Process Review
Nikon Expeed 3 Functional Analysis
Chipworks publishes a quarterly summary report on the the latest image sensor devices analyzed in our labs. This report compares technology elements from leading image sensor manufacturers and includes devices that are covered in our full comprehensive reverse engineering reports as well as those devices that receive cursory analysis by our analysts but are never published publicly. Contact insidetechnology@chipworks.com for details on how to get access to this report.
Is it 4Gb or 4GB?
You can see what K4B4 means on Samsung’s website. They organize their part numbers in a fairly nice pattern.
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/product/computing-dram/catalogue
Hey Nikon’s D5200 having Toshiba’s sensor. Does it a good thing or a bad thing?
I mean I’m talking about the overall impact on the output of the image.
Help! Ty
I think Nikon knows what it is doing. Extremely unlikely that it will release a replacement for the D5100 that performs worse than the predecessor. The 16MP Sony Exmor set a benchmark among APS-C sensor performance, so any doubt about the new Toshiba APS-C sensor is valid. But I trust Nikon and its Expeed 3 processor. I think image quality has more to do with the image processor rather than the image CMOS sensor. I guess we’ll all have to wait for DXOMark about what they say about this Toshiba sensor.
What is funny is that Thom Hogan quietly edited yesterday’s blog post instead of making a fresh entry about this Toshiba sensor finding. Originally, he predicted that the D5200 will have a Sony sensor. He was totally wrong and caught off-guard by this Chipworks surprise finding.
yep, I thought he would write “update” but nothing..just exchanged “sony” with “toshiba”..hehe…anyway,from what see in the converted nefs I have here..the results are pretty funny , maybe is the “new” metal ? ..
Hi ChipWorks,
can you help to identify the new 16mp sensor in m43 cameras – the markings on chip (extracted from EPM2 camera) are as follows (the photo attached, sorry – non professional disassembly)
http://imageshack.us/a/img801/2588/m4316mpm109aqe.jpg
it looks similar to Sony, but it is not IMX prefix, but M prefix… M109AQE (IMX109AQE ‘d be certainly Sony – but M instead of IMX?)
any comments please ?
thank you
We typically don’t publicly comment on teardowns that were not performed in Chipworks’ labs. The image referenced as being sourced from an Olympus PEN E-PM2 contains the package markings “M109″. These markings are consistent with what we’ve documented in our teardowns of similar cameras containing Sony sensors. It is reasonable to conclude that the device is a Sony IMX109.
OK,
that is a good argument for Sony… however if you don’t mind couple of small questions :
why all of a sudden Sony did not label it as “IMX” as they did on the back of all other (my assumption) sensors – did you ever see non “IMX” prefix from Sony ?
and if I get a microscope or more than 1:1 macro lens – where exactly on the front side of the sensor shall I look for additional markings (photos from your website always show “Sony” word placed somewhere outside of sensels area) ? if you don’t mind to provide such advise.
Thank you so much for the prompt response !
The new toshiba sensor is fantastic – little or no aliasing or moiré and image clarity that easily exceeds the Canon &7D, T4I, T3I, etc
Hi, I am expeting my new Nikon D5200 Am I need to be happy or not ? I see some differences here. Is it better than nikon d5100 ? Anyway I will have it, but I would like to now is it worth….. or to thinking for changes in future.
here my question is is previous sensors from THOSHIBA are that much successful like the sensor of sony in d5100?
if so the megapixels dont matter! is it d5100 gains all of the importance in midrange DSLR’s ?
focus points are the impressive here but for action photography/wildlifer’s back ground dosent really matter in those cases 9 focus points are enough(if photographer is not entry level)?
it really bothers me weather these companies are making economical stabilizing experiments on coustomers?