Why has China failed to master the core technology of cameras?

In optics, especially in the camera industry, Patriot can be said to be a second-rate dealer without any strength. Don't be fooled by its so-called "domestic product" appearance as a selling point.

In the Chinese camera industry, Phoenix is ??the strongest, followed by Shanghai Seagull. Seagull is worse than Phoenix. I wonder if Seagull is still alive? As for the rest, it's all nonsense. . . In the film era, both companies had SLRs, and they introduced Japanese technology and even had automatic metering and automatic film winding functions. But of course, the biggest difficulty was that there was no autofocus system that existed at that time. Domestic companies had never been exposed to focus sensors, and they had never been exposed to the ultrasonic motors dedicated to SLRs that are responsible for focus and electromagnetic aperture. These things are composed of The autofocus system is even more impossible to master.

Phoenix was established in the 1960s by relocating five optical, camera, mold, instrument, and precision machinery factories from Shanghai and Nanjing to Shangrao, Jiangxi Province. Among them, the technology of the Nanjing Optical Instrument Factory came from the original factory in the 1950s. Zeiss in East Germany still has Zeiss molds and drawings.

SLR cameras, if they are not digital, traditional film cameras, Phoenix has film SLR cameras. There were one or two models that were not very different from Japanese mid-range digital cameras at that time. Two good lenses are enough to sustain Phoenix for decades. But with the overall disappearance of film cameras, Phoenix's film SLR cameras have also entered history. If you want to buy one, go to Phoenix's marketing channel to order it specially. They are also available in the factory, but ordinary people can't buy film anymore.

The Phoenix SLR shutter is purely mechanical. The Phoenix speed is 1/2000 second, the Samsung speed is 1/6000 second, and the Nikon and Canon speed is 1/8000 second. However, Samsung imports shutter parts from Japan. It estimates that it can't even do 1/1000th of a second. Samsung produced SLR cameras in 1996. When this camera was released, the country was shocked. The shutter speed of Samsung's camera reached 1/4000 seconds. Later I learned that it was completely assembled from Japanese parts and technology came from Japan's Asahi Optical Industry. Company, until now Samsung SLRs are still using Pentax bodies from Asahi Optical. In the film era, Asahi Optical was the leader in Japanese cameras. After the digital era, Nikon and Canon got rid of Asahi Optical, and Asahi Optical made a fortune relying on the vanity of Samsung and Koreans. In terms of optical lenses, Phoenix is ??much better than South Korea's Samsung. There is no comparison.

The biggest gap lies in electronics. Not only the light sensor chip, Phoenix has no ability at all in this area. The autofocus system requires a light sensor, and Phoenix also has no ability at all. , almost went bankrupt when the digital age came, but now it manufactures lenses and assembles cameras for Japanese companies, and also makes some precision machinery, machine tools, optical devices and the like. Last year's turnover was 1.3 billion, including more than 1 billion for cameras and lenses, more than 100 million for various photographic equipment and optical instruments, and nearly 100 million for precision machinery. The three main customers are Fujifilm, Canon, and Pentax. . .

It has invested more than 20 million yuan in research and development every year in the past few years, accounting for about 2% of sales. The main research and development is still in optical lenses and precision processing. As for the research on basic theory, there is definitely no research. , without this, we cannot make new good lenses, we can only rest on our laurels. It definitely can’t keep up with those Japanese manufacturers, and it probably can’t compare to Samsung’s investment in cameras. It can only maintain the capital of technology without any effort. There are also many management problems. It seems that several bosses are in jail.

For in-depth research on optical systems, optical focusing systems, lens combinations, etc., Phoenix cannot do it. If the machinery and precision processing industries could not rest on their laurels for a long time, it would be difficult for latecomers to catch up. Features (for example, Phoenix is ??a mature lens from the 1960s and 1970s that South Korea's Samsung cannot produce), Phoenix has long been unable to survive. The Changchun Institute of Optics and Mechanics, which has been conducting in-depth research in this area, is much better than Phoenix and Samsung. It is not on the same level at all. Chengdu Institute of Optoelectronics, Chongqing 44th Institute, Xi'an Institute of Optics and Mechanics, and National University of Defense Technology are all much better than Phoenix. In this area, the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the strongest. The three Chinese Academy of Sciences in Changchun, Chengdu, and Xi'an are stronger than the 44 Chongqing institutes of China Power Group. The National University of Defense Technology is more mysterious, but it is definitely better than Phoenix, which is resting on its laurels.

Let’s not talk about these. The core difference is mainly in the photosensitive chip. Now let’s talk about the core and biggest difference between SLR cameras, the photosensitive chip.

In order to give everyone an intuitive feeling, let me give you an analogy:

A now common LCD, such as a 32-inch LCD TV, has a display size of: 697.68mm *392.26mm, the resolution is: 1920*1080, that is, the size of a single pixel element is: 697.68mm/1920=363 microns, that is, the size of a single control TFT circuit element behind the panel is 363*363 microns.

With this comparison object, now there will be a reference for photosensitive chips, which are mainly divided into two categories: CCD chips and CMOS chips. A five-megapixel SLR camera means that there are five pixels on a photosensitive chip. Millions of CCD units or COMS units.

The image quality is much better than CCD, but CMOS is much more power-saving, only about one-tenth of the power consumption of CCD.

However, the disadvantage of CMOS is that a CMOS unit has poor imaging quality due to its high circuit integration, close proximity between the chip light-sensing element and the circuit, and serious electromagnetic interference. However, because information is read quickly and processed quickly, it is more suitable for video recorders than CCD, especially for security monitoring equipment that does not have high imaging quality requirements.

A CCD unit is composed of a photoelectric induction diode and a memory. The diode converts various received lights into corresponding amounts of charges, and then transmits them to the subsequent memory. It is a Continuous process, so the CCD unit only outputs analog electrical signals. Therefore, the CCD chip also needs to cooperate with three chips: address decoder, digital-to-analog converter, and graphic signal processor. It also needs to cooperate with these three chips to provide three sets of power supplies and synchronous clock controllers respectively. In other words, a CCD chip requires at least three chips, or eight or nine chips. As a result, its power consumption is very high, the cost is high, and the volume is larger. Moreover, CCD converts and outputs information under clock control, and the information processing time is much slower than that of CMOS chips, so for video security equipment Said, CCD is a bit slow.

So nowadays, SLR cameras basically use CCD chips, and rarely use CMOS chips; and general digital cameras, depending on the price, have both, and no one has the advantage.

At present, each pixel unit on the CCD chip or CMOS chip of general consumer electronic products such as mobile phones, digital cameras, video security equipment, etc. is more than 1 micron, but each pixel unit of the CCD unit on a SLR camera is It is about 5 microns, which is much larger than ordinary consumer electronics. The two technologies are different. It is not that the smaller the unit, the better. Even CCD still has photo-electromagnetic influence. If the pixel density is low and the pixel unit is larger, the corresponding photo-electromagnetic influence will be smaller and the imaging quality will be better. high. Of course, the technology here is quite complicated. I can’t explain it clearly in just a few words now, but I can roughly understand what it means. That’s it.

As for the situation of the domestic industry of photosensitive chips, the Changchun Institute of Optics and Mechanics' laboratory should have independent production capacity of nearly 10 million pixel CCDs. It has been doing this for many years, but this is a laboratory. In the past It should be supplied to the military and aerospace industry in small quantities. Chongqing Institute 44 is said to have produced a 16-megapixel CCD, but this is not accurate. The Changchun Institute of Optics and Mechanics is more reliable. These are basically the only two companies that make CCDs in China. The two Optoelectronics Institutes in Chengdu and Xi'an have very strong system capabilities, and there is a lot of news about these two remote sensing cameras on satellites.

The Chengdu Institute of Optoelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences just claimed to have built a 100 million pixel camera, which sounds very awesome! But I bought a CCD chip from a Canadian company. The size of this CCD unit is 9 microns. If you convert it, 100 million pixels is 10,000 times 10,000, which means the size of this chip is 9 cm * 9 cm. The CCD unit size of the general Japanese CCD SLR cameras on the market is about 5 microns, which is about half that of this Canadian product. The specific difference between the two is currently unclear. The imaging quality of this Canadian chip is still unknown, but with such large pixels and such a large unit size, there should not be much difference. Although the core is a foreign chip, Chengdu Optoelectronics Institute can use the chip to independently develop this camera, which requires considerable strength. However, such a large chip cannot be used in SLR cameras and should be used for military purposes.