Sony’s latest TX1 and WX1 compacts are the first to make use of the back-illuminated CMOS technology that the company has developed. Initially announced in June 2008 the technology, dubbed Exmor R, essentially involves exposing what would be the underside of a conventional CMOS chip, meaning that the light doesn’t first have to travel past the chip’s electronic circuitry to reach its light-sensitive region. The result is a chip with a greater light-sensitive area that the company says is more than twice as sensitive as conventional CMOS sensors.

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