Earthquake in Japan affects Sony CMOS sensor production

Two earthquakes that took place in the Kyushu Region, Japan, on the 14th and 16th of April 2016 have affected Sony’s CMOS sensor production lines at their Kumamoto Technology Center. The JAI camera manufacturing plant in Japan is also located close to the epicentre, but was hardly affected and has led to no personal injuries.

On the 16th of April 2016 an earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.0 hit the Sony CMOS sensor and camera production lines, including the facilities with production lines of Sony’s large volume CMOS sensors for consumer and industrial cameras. Due to continuing aftershocks, Sony’s attempts to fully assess the damage to the facility have been hampered.

As a result of this, shipping of some Sony industrial camera series are on allocation. There are also potential effects on the shipping of CMOS sensor based cameras from all suppliers using these Sony sensors, including our key suppliers Allied Vision, Teledyne DALSA and JAI with a possibility of delay and shortage of the affected camera series. CCD based cameras are not affected.

The future deliveries of CMOS based industrial camera modules depends on the recovery plan which Sony is trying establish as soon as possible. Stemmer Imaging has already ordered remnant cameras on stock and is – as always – in close contact with our camera suppliers to absorb the effects for our customers as far as possible.