Kodak Sells Image Sensor Business

With Kodak looking to boost liquidity in light of its less-than-rosy financial situation, the American firm has sold off its image sensor business to a private equity investment firm.

Kodak has in fact sold its Image Sensor Solutions business, which oversaw the development, manufacture and sale of the firm's CCD sensors.

Kodak was a pioneer in the field of CCD technology. Even though the CCD sensor was technically invented over at Bell Labs, Kodak was among the first companies to mass produce CCDs and install them in digital cameras. It was all the way back in 1991 that Kodak started selling the DCS100, for example, a modified Nikon F3 body with a 1.3-Megapixel sensor replacing the silver-halide film. The device was accompanied by a kind of over-the-shoulder case, containing a battery and a hard drive to record the photos it took.

After other camera makers reclaimed the digital SLR market, Kodak concentrated its efforts on consumer compacts, rather ironically using Japanese-made CCD chips in these models. However, the ISS division carried on designing and manufacturing CCD sensors, focusing on niche markets such as high-sensitivity devices (surveillance cameras, satellite imaging, industrial applications etc.) and larger-format sensors. The Pentax 645D, pictured above, was, for example, equipped with a medium-format Kodak CCD measuring 33 x 44 mm and with 40 Megapixels. The Leica M9 rangefinder (24 x 36 mm, 18 MP) is another noteworthy example.

The sale of this division will help Kodak raise some much-needed cash. The amount the firm sold its ISS business for wasn't disclosed, but stock markets responded well to the sale, with Kodak's share price dropping as the market opened and then climbing back up to a stable level.

Symbolically, however, it's rather discouraging to see a former heavyweight of the photography industry give up on an activity it helped to create. It's not exactly an encouraging sign for Kodak's long-term future either, as the firm continues to struggle to make a name for itself in the consumer imaging sector (compact cameras, printers etc.) and has seen the core of its historic activities, such as film photography and photo print minilabs, all but disappear. It's a sad day when Kodak has to start selling of its patents and historic, ground-breaking divisions to keep the company afloat.



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