In essence the charged CCD now stores an image, albeit an analog (as opposed to digital) one.

FORBES: Technology briefing

The unit receives a video signal from analog cable or a broadcast antenna and rescales the image to be compatible with high-resolution monitors.

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Conventional CMOS image sensors mount the pixel section and analog logic circuit on top of the same chip, which require numerous constraints when wishing to mount the large-scale circuits such as measures to counter the circuit scale and chip size, measures to suppress noise caused by the layout of the pixel and circuit sections, and optimizing the characteristics of pixels and circuit transistors.

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"As mobile devices like smartphones and tablets get smaller and thinner, the pixel size of image sensors needs to shrink accordingly, " said Andrew Burt, vice president of the Analog and Imaging Business Unit, System LSI Group at TAEC.

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The transition to digital image processing and storage has brought mighty companies such as Kodak to their knees and spawned a great many consumer electronic companies that have created image capture and display devices with features and capabilities that would never have been possible with analog technology.

FORBES: End of the Reel