14 DAY TRIAL // There's a reason why Canon is the leader of the photographic equipment market and that reason is called "CMOS sensors". Admittedly, it's not the only reason why Canon has the largest DSLR market share, but it's their main advantage over other players, especially over Nikon, which buys its sensors from Sony.
According to news agency Reuters, Canon will invest about 55 billion yen ($451 million) to build a new factory in Japan to double its production capacity of image sensors used in digital cameras. The interesting part is that Canon will also use the new CMOS units in compact cameras. So far, the only Canon cameras benefiting from the complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS) have been the DSLR ones.
Canon's CMOS units are responsible for the company's supremacy in the professional field, the low noise found in images taken at high ISO sensitives convincing a large number of Nikon users to switch to 1Ds Mark II and 1D Mark III.
Canon will now implement the CMOS sensors, albeit with a much smaller size, in the future compact cameras, which are known to have noise problems when used above ISO 400. It's likely that this move will further strengthen its position on the photographic market and force other manufacturers to develop their own solutions.
Up until now, Canon's compact cameras have included CCD sensors, most of them purchased from Sony, which also supplies Nikon and Pentax. Nikon has been experimenting with other sensor designs, which materialized in the LBCAST (Lateral Buried Charge Accumulator and Sensing Transistor array) Junction Field Effect Transistor (JFET) solution implemented in the professional D2H. However, the second largest manufacturer came back to Sony and continued to implement their CCD and CMOS units.
In conclusion, Sony and Nikon will have the most to suffer from this move, the first likely to record a drop in the number of sold CCDs and the latter because Canon keeps expanding its CMOS manufacturing capacities. Since Sony is planning on releasing new digital single lens reflex cameras (including a professional one), which will benefit from the proprietary CMOS and CCD solutions, Nikon would better have some aces up its sleeve to face the increasing competition.