Will new chip revolutionize digital photography?

A company founded by well-known physicist, technologist, and inventor Carver Mead has developed a light-sensing chip that promises to radically change digital photography. Mead´s company, Foveon, spent four years developing the X3 photographic sensor chip, which delivers two to four times the image resolution of other comparable digital-camera chips. Most digital cameras use charge-coupled-device technology. In the CCD process, light-sensitive integrated circuits store and display an image´s data, converting each pixel into an electrical charge whose intensity corresponds to a specific color. These cameras use a mosaic filter with chip sensors that each detect just one color: red, green, or blue. Within the X3 chip, each sensor can detect red, green, and blue, depending on how far the captured light penetrates through layers of silicon-based color filters. The first X3-based cameras are scheduled to ship in the near future. National Semiconductor will build most of each chip, while Foveon will handle the final steps