This article is not about the United State one-cent coin (aka a penny). This article is about the tiny speck on the left of the penny. That, my friends, is not a speck of dirt; it is the world’s smallest camera sensor.
Called the OmniVision OH0TA OVMed Medical Image Sensor, it measures an impossibly small 0.55 x 0.55 mm. To put things in perspective, a typical grain of rice is 7-9 millimeters.
I know right? It is absolutely bonkers. This microscopic imaging sensor features a 1.0-micron pixel and 1/31” optical format that quadruples the RGB image resolution to 400 x 400, or 160 Kpixels, at 30 frames per second while reducing power consumption by 20% to 20 mW over the last generation sensor.
Obviously, it is not going to be super high resolution but it is good enough for application in the medical field. And so, yeah, it is a medical sensor. So, you perv, or warmongering weapon makers can stop lusting over it. Although these people are going to get their hands on this technology somehow.
Anyhoo, the OmniVision OH0TA is a new medical image sensor for endoscope and catheter cameras that offers improved image quality while reducing power consumption. It will enable surgeons to see better and because of its super tiny size, it can access deeper into the smallest parts of the anatomy.
With an image sensor that this tiny, medical camera designers can incorporate ultra-compact visualization to single-use and reusable endoscopes, as well as catheters and guidewires, with a small outer diameter of 1-2 mm.
The sensor’s tiny size also allows the development of large-diameter scope, leaving more room for a larger working channel.
With the OH0TA OVMed Medical Image Sensor, OmniVision broke its own Guinness World Record of the “Smallest Commercially Available Image Sensor” previously set by the OmniVision OV6948. If you are interested, you may learn more about this revolutionary sensor HERE and HERE.
Images: OmniVision.
Hat tip: Instagram (@world_of_engineering_75).