GH5 Panasonic sells sensor division

J

jdv

Well-known member
Yet another sign of down-turn in the camera biz:

"Panasonic Corp said it would sell its loss-making semiconductor unit to Taiwan's Nuvoton Technology Corp for $250 million as the Japanese electronics giant struggles to lift its profit amid a lack of growth drivers.

The sale is part of Panasonic's plans to cut fixed costs by 100 billion yen ($920 million) by the year ending in March 2022 by consolidating production sites and overhauling loss-making businesses.

Panasonic has already divested most of its chip business as it lost to more nimble Korean and Taiwanese rivals, and has shut down or shifted its manufacturing facilities to its joint venture (JV) with Israel's Tower Semiconductor."
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It's unclear whether or not Panny will halt sensor development (specifically on "organic" sensors), or if they have sold all existing tech to Nuvoton.

None of the recent news from Panasonic or Olympus gives me much confidence that the MFT lineup will see any significant upgrades.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-panasonic-sell-chip-unit-075139158.html
 
I have little interest in business and therefore little understanding. But a question that comes to mind, whenever I hear about a business getting spun off or sold, goes something like this: "If Nuvoton can make money in semiconductors, why can't Panasonic?"
 
combatentropy said:
I have little interest in business and therefore little understanding. But a question that comes to mind, whenever I hear about a business getting spun off or sold, goes something like this: "If Nuvoton can make money in semiconductors, why can't Panasonic?"
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Because Nuvoton is a specialty company, while Panasonic is not. And it's a volume thing.

But this looks to be writing on the wall insofar as the photo-video business goes. You strip overhead and R&D first. The full frame is around 12%-13% of the overall business globally (about 10% in Japan, as I posted in the Canon thread on the Industry News) and Panasonic only has about nothing of that (Sony, Canon and Nikon add up to almost 100% of full frame cameras sold).

ILC's move about 10 million units annually and one has to wonder how many - 5-4-3? - are too few. At some point, companies will begin to exit the business a la Samsung.
 
The company buying the division may see other value in the division besides profit. Without knowing the deal, it's impossible to say why Nuvoton bought it and what they expect (profit or otherwise) from the division. They may just strip it down to production of existing products and bleed it dry. Maybe there's some patents that have some value. Who knows.
 
Hopefully they squeezed out the GH6 sensor as the last hurrah! Definitely question marks over the MFT format as other sensor makers are probably not pumping out a full array of MFT sized chips.
 
Bassman2003 said:
Hopefully they squeezed out the GH6 sensor as the last hurrah! Definitely question marks over the MFT format as other sensor makers are probably not pumping out a full array of MFT sized chips.
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Sony's announced a 47 MPX MFT sensor, which should serve as the base for the entire MFT lineup with a possible exception of the S-model. How this does in sales by both Panasonic and Olympus will determine whether there is GH-7 or not.

In terms of the overall industry, one has to look at the next generation of the smartphones that will be coming out in the winter-spring of 2020. With its 50-108 MPX sensors, it's more likely than not they will make the MFT and the APS-C market superfluous. If so, one will see the smaller manufacturers such as Ricoh/Pentax and Olympus exiting the industry altogether. The next round will see only the Big Three standing, with Panasonic rolling its consumer division into a united prosumer unit. Then it ought to be Nikon's turn, unless it'll just keep releasing Nikon badged Sony products (which it sort of does anyway).

And then all will depend on how far the market will shrink. Right now, it stands at ~ 10 million ILC units. A 20% annual shipment reduction, as has been the case over the last few years, will see the total around 5 million in three years. That ought to to sustain no more than three manufacturers. Chances are is that three will be one too many.
 
DLD said:
But this looks to be writing on the wall insofar as the photo-video business goes. You strip overhead and R&D first.
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I see this as the photo-video business maturing. For the past two decades the top selling desktop/laptop/server processor was Intel who make their own CPU chips, but AMD has now eclipsed Intel to take the number one spot and AMD farms out all of their CPU manufacturing. AMD is ALL about R&D and building better tech, but they leave the actual production of their chips to other companies.

Panasonic owning 49 percent of the Tower Jazz sensor company only makes sense if Tower Jazz can deliver high end custom chips to Panasonic at a reduced price, which I don't think ever happened. So getting rid of sensor manufacturing leaves Panasonic free to pick from any of the sensor companies that best fit their camera designs.

Honestly, I don't see any problem here.
 
I think there will be a backlash from phone users once they see the size of 100MPX photos. A pendulum swinging way too far in one direction.
 
TheDingo said:
... Honestly, I don't see any problem here.
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The sensor business isn't going away. The photo-video business - in its current form that has been around for some eighty years - is. It's no big deal to Panasonic since it represents a minuscule portion of its overall revenues. It's a huge deal to Canon and Nikon.

combatentropy said:
Phones have taken great pictures for several years now. But resolution isn't the reason we buy pro cameras.
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Someone will make pro tier cameras both for stills and video. That said, GFX 100 is a 16-bit 100 MPX medium format model and some photogs claim that no one needs 16 bits because 14 is enough. Some YouTubers think that A7RV is surplus to requirements due to its 61 MPX file size and that ~ 45 MPX is plenty sufficient. In other words, besides the smartphones eating the point and shoot and the low end APS-C sales, the law of diminishing returns is pressing down on the high end product. Even in video, a perfectly feature film capable GH-5 is marked down to $1,300 and it's facing competition even there with the EZ Cams and BMD Pocket 4K.

And so goes the history of the obsolete technologies, adding cameras to vinyl records, horse drawn carriages and trebuchets.
 
Bassman2003 said:
I think there will be a backlash from phone users once they see the size of 100MPX photos. A pendulum swinging way too far in one direction.
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It's a Quad Bayer pattern sensor that mostly works in 27 MPX mode, which is higher resolution than every APS-C camera aside of the new Canon models that have 32 MPX. And Canon can't do 108 on any consumer and pro camera it has currently in its lineup.
 
Most sensors are not fabricated by the companies that design them. Selling off the manufacturing arm does not necessarily mean abandoning engineering and development of new sensors.
 
DLD/ said:
And so goes the history of the obsolete technologies, adding cameras to vinyl records, horse drawn carriages and trebuchets.
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Vinyl records have made a huge resurgence in the last three years. Many artists are now releasing digital online only and pressing vinyl only for hardcopy releases. A local independent record store a friend owns has seen CD vs vinyl album sales completely reverse to the point where vinyl album sales are now 83% of his business.
 
Razz16mm said:
Vinyl records have made a huge resurgence in the last three years. Many artists are now releasing digital online only and pressing vinyl only for hardcopy releases. A local independent record store a friend owns has seen CD vs vinyl album sales completely reverse to the point where vinyl album sales are now 83% of his business.
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And audiophiles hunt for the professional Revox/Studer reel-to-reel's while others are downloading the uncompressed 24-bit files.

And vinyl is up because the cassette, the 8-track, the compact disc, the digital audio tape, the mini-disc and the MP3 players are all dead as well. And Elcaset, quite sadly, never took off.
 
We are at a wonderful time where one can choose both audio and video equipment all of which can produce great finished product. IF the operator has the talent to do that. There was a time when lower cost equipment did not produce good and competitive results compared to very expensive Pro equipment. Not true anymore, it is now down to talent. Deliver in the format that is asked for. Most of mine is still DVD. One could say starting with UHD 60P from my GH5`s is overkill but it gives a lot of flexibility in editing for example.
 
Audiophiles still prefer analog and will buy a good turntable setup before they drop $2k+ on a high end DAC or disc player.
 
DLD said:
Sony's announced a 47 MPX MFT sensor, which should serve as the base for the entire MFT lineup with a possible exception of the S-model. How this does in sales by both Panasonic and Olympus will determine whether there is GH-7 or not.
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If the next gen of MFT camera uses a chip with this many sites, doesn't this essentially doom the camera's chances for being better in low light? I don't know what effect, if any, it'd have on dynamic range....

Might be better at auto focusing though.
 
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