"One has to be an expert in the Sigma-delta ADC and signal processing theory to be able to understand the benefits and limitations of this method when applied to the imaging. Yes, the sigma-delta approach can be easily modified to be able to capture low-lights. Also, it can be easily modified to remove reset noise, threshold offsets and any pixel or column-level FPN.
Here are some measurement results:
Input referred read noise at 30fps= 37.8microV (nothing like this has been reported previously). This easily translates into <1e- read noise
Intra-scene linear dynamic range = 91dB
FPN less than 0.5%
Power at 30fps 10 x lower than APS and other digital approaches
Allows real time low power compression (inluding JPEG and JPEG 2000), motion blur correction, white balancing, ....
The only drawback is increased memory size required for the Sigma-delta approach."
As a matter of fact, the previous part DPReview discussion has been deleted from the forums there, but saved as a copy here, here and here.
Update: Another Jake Ignjatovic post in DPReview forum adds more statements:
"To stop further speculations on the Sigma-delta imager:
- there are only 3 minimum size transistors per pixel - fill factor is as high if not higher than in the APS.
- the design scales well with the technology since it relays on transistor speed and not the precision - another unique feature.
- the design is not affected with power supply voltage reduction in more advanced CMOS technologies
- and finally, yes we can and we will be utilizing PIN diodes.
At least some of these new statements are questionable. For example, many modern APS with 4T shared pixel have 1.75 transistor per pixel or even 1.5T per pixel. 3T per pixel is not very competitive for small pixels.
Update #2: On the product schedule Jake Ignjatovitc says:
"ADVIS, Inc has plans to release its first commercial HD sensor based on the Sigma-delta technology in Q2 2010."
On the possibility to see the results in the paper Jake says:
"The "real" paper is coming out soon. We just have to make sure that certain people interested in slowing down the imaging science progress are not the reviewers."
Update #3: Below is ADVIS sigma-delta pixel noise spectrum that Jake referred in the comments to this post:
