Speculation about Sony taking OmniVision’s business has been going on for some time now. Over the weekend Sony declared in an interview that they had beat OmniVision in the race to supply camera sensors to Apple (AAPL) for its gadgets, the iPhone5 in particular. The current version of the iPhone uses sensors from OmniVision. How this move of Sony will impact Ominivision? No of things to consider..
- Ominivision can get as many as 72,000 wafers per month working with Thaiwan Semi(TSM), where as Sony won’t likely get to 50,000 wafers per month for CCD and CMOS image sensors till March of 2012, giving OmniVision a big capacity advantage.
- In 8-megapixel sensors, OmniVision have a technology lead with its “BSI-2” product; TSM’s manufacturing should lead to cheaper parts than Sony’s; the TSM fabrication means OmniVision’s parts would be near the iPhone’s assembly in Taiwan.
- Why would Apple use a competitor part from Sony?
- Recently OminiVision purchased 850 image-sensor patents from Eastman Kodak(EK). This will help them enable them to reduce the cost of product design and development.
Given all these facts, Apple may split the CMOS sensor business in 2011 between Sony and OmniVision. However OminiVision will have its own advantage over Sony in the markt.