When looking at statistics about who makes what, how much they sell for, and how much they invest, it is very important to remember that many internet sources mix up sales of three basic metrics:
1) sales in number of sensor units
2) sales in sales value
3) sales in metric area wafer
I'm looking at number two, that is sales in value. This is the easiest and usually most accurate since the manufacturers can only obfuscate their sales up to a certain point in their economic reports. They can't just lie about how much money circulates, taxation and investor relations prevent that very effectively.
The Value of Sales that Canon Semi has is very well reported in their annual reports, and to a lesser degree (only the overall total amount) in the quarterly reports.
That value is right now 800M USD intersegment (Canon Lith > Canon Semi and Canon Semi > Canon imaging and office), nine months into the fiscal year. This value includes print heads (Canon precision) and stepper motors and piezo motors and all the other stuff that Precision sell to both Imaging and Office.
http://www.canon.com/ir/results/2012/rslt2012q3e.pdf
The exact number of sensors is another thing, and pretty hard to compare since Canon Semi is predominately a "large-sensor" company, where each unit of sale (average of total over the year) represents a higher value. I can't say the exact proportions, but companies like Omni and STM probably sell (in unit numbers) about 30-50x more sensors than what Canon does.
One thing to note about the sheet from earlier is the very important sentence in fine print below the spreadsheet:
-"...calculated based on shipment of application devices"
This means that in the case where the manufacturer delivers complete SOC packages as "modules" to the customers (buyers of small-sensor stuff almost never buy "sensors", they buy "sensor modules") the price for the base-plate, the image processing logic, the filter package, the mounting package and so on is included in the total. In stead of a sensor, you get everything included downstream up to the point of memory interface to the card reader or internal memory in the device you bought the package for.
Normally this means a tripling of the sales value in total - the sensor cost in one third of the sales total.
1) sales in number of sensor units
2) sales in sales value
3) sales in metric area wafer
I'm looking at number two, that is sales in value. This is the easiest and usually most accurate since the manufacturers can only obfuscate their sales up to a certain point in their economic reports. They can't just lie about how much money circulates, taxation and investor relations prevent that very effectively.
The Value of Sales that Canon Semi has is very well reported in their annual reports, and to a lesser degree (only the overall total amount) in the quarterly reports.
That value is right now 800M USD intersegment (Canon Lith > Canon Semi and Canon Semi > Canon imaging and office), nine months into the fiscal year. This value includes print heads (Canon precision) and stepper motors and piezo motors and all the other stuff that Precision sell to both Imaging and Office.
http://www.canon.com/ir/results/2012/rslt2012q3e.pdf
The exact number of sensors is another thing, and pretty hard to compare since Canon Semi is predominately a "large-sensor" company, where each unit of sale (average of total over the year) represents a higher value. I can't say the exact proportions, but companies like Omni and STM probably sell (in unit numbers) about 30-50x more sensors than what Canon does.
One thing to note about the sheet from earlier is the very important sentence in fine print below the spreadsheet:
-"...calculated based on shipment of application devices"
This means that in the case where the manufacturer delivers complete SOC packages as "modules" to the customers (buyers of small-sensor stuff almost never buy "sensors", they buy "sensor modules") the price for the base-plate, the image processing logic, the filter package, the mounting package and so on is included in the total. In stead of a sensor, you get everything included downstream up to the point of memory interface to the card reader or internal memory in the device you bought the package for.
Normally this means a tripling of the sales value in total - the sensor cost in one third of the sales total.
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