Revolutionary new sensor from Sony?

[vanvideo]

It's just a rumor, but Sonyalpharumors reports Sony is working on a sensor that does not require a Bayer filter:

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5-sony-sensor-revolution-first-non-bayer-sensors-coming-in-2015/

 

[atarijedi]

It says without a classic bayer sensor pattern. It could simply be a different pattern. It could be like kodaks RGBW, with a white pixel, who knows!

 

[Samuel H]

Sony has several patents for Foveon-like sensors.
http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com.es/2013/01/sony-applies-for-another-layered-sensor.html
Also, as you'll see in the comments there, the trouble with this kind of sensors is that they are very bad at color, because the 3 signals are very similar to each other (there's a lot of overlap in frequencies captured by each layer). Plus, as Mr Fossum says there, once you have a high-enough pixel count, diffraction makes Bayer artifacts a non-issue.

 

[Razz16mm]

It says without a classic bayer sensor pattern. It could simply be a different pattern. It could be like kodaks RGBW, with a white pixel, who knows!

They have one sensor which is essentially a Bayer pattern rotated 45 degrees so you have alternating vertical columns of red, green, blue pixels stacked on their corners. Could be read out as a vertical stripe sensor or interpolated like a normal bayer pattern filter. Less aliasing than a conventional RGB striped sensor.