Foveon, Inc., is an American company that manufactures and distributes

image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of c ...

technology. It makes the

Foveon X3 sensor The Foveon X3 sensor is a digital camera image sensor designed by Foveon, Inc., (now part of Sigma Corporation) and manufactured by Dongbu Electronics. It uses an array of photosites that consist of three vertically stacked photodiodes. Each o ...

, which captures images in some

digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices ...

s. Foveon was founded in 1997 and is based in

Santa Clara, California Santa Clara (; Spanish for " Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 census, making it the eighth-most populous city in the Bay Area. Located in the southern Bay Area, the cit ...

. In 2008 it was bought by

Sigma Corporation is a Japanese company, manufacturing cameras, lenses, flashes and other photographic accessories. All Sigma products are produced in the company's own Aizu factory in Bandai, Fukushima, Japan. Although Sigma produces several camera models ...

Details

The company, founded in 1997 by

Carver Mead Carver Andress Mead (born May 1, 1934) is an American scientist and engineer. He currently holds the position of Gordon and Betty Moore Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Applied Science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), ...

, Richard Lyon, Richard B. Merrill, Richard Turner, Richard Nedwich, and others, was a spin-off of

National Semiconductor National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The company produced power management integrated circuits, display dr ...

and

Synaptics Synaptics is a publicly owned San Jose, California-based developer of human interface (HMI) hardware and software, including touchpads for computer laptops; touch, display driver, and fingerprint biometrics technology for smartphones; and touc ...

. The founding directors were:

Federico Faggin Federico Faggin (, ; born 1 December 1941) is an Italian physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group d ...

(president and CEO of Synaptics), Brian Halla (chairman, president/CEO of National Semiconductor), and Dick Sanquini (VP of National Semiconductor). It is based in

. Foveon was initially known for their high-end digital portrait camera systems built around a color-separation beam-splitter prism assembly. Later, the X3 pixel sensor became the company's main product. Both the prism system and the X3 technology derive their benefit from using all the light and sensing all colors at all locations. Foveon was previously known as Foveonics. The name is derived from the fovea of the human eye, which enables sharp imaging while reading or watching television.

George Gilder George Franklin Gilder (; born November 29, 1939) is an American investor, author, economist, and co-founder of the Discovery Institute. His 1981 book, '' Wealth and Poverty'', advanced a case for supply-side economics and capitalism during the e ...

wrote ''The Silicon Eye'', which tells the story of Foveon and its founders. On 11 November 2008, when Federico Faggin was the CEO, all shares of Foveon stock were acquired by

. The company continued in a new location as a wholly owned portion of Sigma.

References

External links

*{{Official website, www.foveon.com
Italian Foveon Community
Companies based in Santa Clara, California Technology companies established in 1997 Photography companies of the United States Technology companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area 1997 establishments in California