# Patent: Canon BSI Stacked Sensor



## Canon Rumors Guy (Jan 25, 2018)

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It’s patent day, and we have another stacked sensor patent. What’s interesting about this one is how detailed it is. It’s likely we’re going to see some stacked sensor technology in a Canon product sooner than later.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.canonnews.com/canon-applies-for-a-bsi-stacked-sensor-patent">Canon News</a> interprets Japan Patent Application 2018-014519:</strong></p>
<blockquote><p>This patent is about offloading heat generated from the processing substrate.  Heat of any sort is bad for an image sensor, as that turns into noise.  As you move more processing into the image sensor substrates you increase the heat generated.</p>


<p>This is the most detailed stacked sensor patent application that I’ve seen to date, and it gets really specific on the size, depth and measurements of the indidvidual sections of the sensor stack.   It also demonstrates in it’s embodiments a back side illuminated sensor as the photoelectrical substrate. <a href="https://www.canonnews.com/canon-applies-for-a-bsi-stacked-sensor-patent">Read more at Canon News</a></p></blockquote>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-33210" src="http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/JPA_430014519_000005-728x283.gif" alt="" width="728" height="283" srcset="http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/JPA_430014519_000005-728x283.gif 728w, http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/JPA_430014519_000005-768x299.gif 768w, http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/JPA_430014519_000005-225x88.gif 225w, http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/JPA_430014519_000005-610x237.gif 610w" sizes="(max-width: 728px) 100vw, 728px" /></p>
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## mistaspeedy (Jan 26, 2018)

Call me a pessimist, but I am somehow doubting any of this technology is getting implemented into any camera anytime soon. Maybe in 10+ years time.


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## exquisitor (Jan 26, 2018)

mistaspeedy said:


> Call me a pessimist, but I am somehow doubting any of this technology is getting implemented into any camera anytime soon. Maybe in 10+ years time.



Who knows, maybe we will see BSI sensor in the future 5DS Mark II. High density APS-C sensor would be also worth of BSI (90D ???).


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## BeenThere (Jan 26, 2018)

I’m counting like 22 layers + base in this design. Incredibly complicated to build with high yield. Will performance improvements justify the cost?


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## canonnews (Jan 26, 2018)

BeenThere said:


> I’m counting like 22 layers + base in this design. Incredibly complicated to build with high yield. Will performance improvements justify the cost?



All IC's have an incredible amount of layers, that's not unusual nor that complicated. 

It's unusual to see this much detail in a patent application. It's a good indicator that Canon is already prototyping these sensors and now solving the problems they find with them.

is it worth it? it depends - it allows Canon to use larger design rules for the actual sensor part of the chip and get someone else to do the processing chip. This can increase both performance, decrease power requirements, and decrease the amount of sunk costs into fabrication plants that Canon needs to do to remain competitive over time. Stacking also allows for greater sensor efficiency, because there is less wiring on the sensor and more on the processing substrate.

Sensors are simply going to get more complicated - the A9 is a good illustration of that. You add processing, memory to the sensor, you need additional substrates to handle that. 8K would be another reason in the not too distant future to need stacked sensors as the data offloading would certainly be more difficult than 4K and Canon's already having troubles with 4K. 8K is coming. Fast.

Pure stacking IC's isn't that hard, sensors have additional levels of complexity - heat. but the pure methods of stacking are well known. Most of our SSD's are now called "3D memory" which is exactly that, stacked chips.


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## snoke (Jan 28, 2018)

Sensor with fan. Bad. Don't want it in camera.


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## Jack Douglas (Jan 28, 2018)

snoke said:


> Sensor with fan. Bad. Don't want it in camera.



You could get some pretty abstract looking photos if the sensor looked like my CPU with fan. 

Jack


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## Mikehit (Jan 28, 2018)

Jack Douglas said:


> snoke said:
> 
> 
> > Sensor with fan. Bad. Don't want it in camera.
> ...



Ha! ha! if they are gong down the desktop computer line, the next generation will be water-cooled


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