OmniVision, maker of cameraphone chips, acquires CDM, specialty optics company

OmniVision Technologies, which makes many of the chips that power cameraphones, has acquired CDM Optics, a small company that develops "Wavefront Coding" technologies to enhance images in real-time (the system sounds like a proprietary version of unsharp masking combined with specialized lenses). OmniVision plans to incorporate the technology into cameraphone chips within 12 to 18 months. They'd better get moving; by next year, the average cameraphone will probably be 10 megapixels, but will still take lousy pictures due to poor optics, bad autofocus systems and useless flashes. Anything that can help will be more than welcome.

[Thanks, Brian]

[ed @ Dec 19th 2005 1:38AM]

The importance of wavefront coding (as related to cameraphones) is so that cameraphones can be made cheaper by not having to have a focus or aperture mechanism.

Wavefront coding would theoretically have everything in focus from just a few inches away from the camera to infinity, at what is called the "wide open" setting of the lens - the setting that gathers the most light and therefore reduces image blur, shake, and shadow noise.