Sony sees an opportunity in CMOS image sensors and is investing serious cash into them to prove it.
The company today announced that it plans to invest about 80 billion yen (US$996 million) into the Sony Semiconductor Corp.’s Nagasaki Technology Center. The funds will start flowing in the first half of the fiscal year that ends March 31, 2013 and will be cut off in the first half of its next fiscal year.
Sony’s investment is designed to increase total production capacity for CCD and CMOS image sensors to approximately 60,000 wafers per month by the end of September 2013. The company didn’t say how many wafers are produced at this point.