A new image sensor's in town, and it's about to revolutionize the dash cam market

Sony's launched a new image sensor, and while it may not be some 1-inch flagship phone sensor or a new stacked full-frame CMOS chip, it'll almost certainly become the mainstay of one particular camera sector for the next few years.

Called IMX908, it measures a relatively modest 1/2.8-inches in size and has an 8.4-megapixel resolution. But this isn't a sensor designed for capturing high-res stills. Rather, this marks the first sensor in Sony's brand new STARVIS 3 range of image sensors designed for security cameras and dash cams.

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Right now STARVIS 2 sensors can be found in almost every current mid- to high-end dash cam on the market. Their focus on high dynamic range makes them ideal for coping with the huge and unpredictable contrast variation encountered during driving.

The STARVIS 3 IMX908 sensor is a back-illuminated design with a deep photodiode layer. This is said to provide high performance in low light conditions, as well as high sensitivity to the near-infrared spectrum - both important attributes for security and dash cam implementations.

The key to its performance are newly-developed LOFIC pixels. LOFIC - Lateral overflow integration capacitor - is Sony's proprietary pixel technology developed for security cameras. Sony claims the tech can deliver nearly 20x the amount of saturated charge when compared to a first-gen STARIS sensor, resulting in approximately 27% better low-light performance and a dynamic range of up to 96 dB in a single-shot exposure. This is achieved without the use of multiple exposures - a more typical means of producing an HDR image - making the sensor better suited to capturing the kind of fast-moving subjects encountered in dash cam applications.

We'll still have to wait for STARVIS 3 sensors to show up in consumer products, but with intense competition in the dash cam sector, we probably won't have to wait long.