http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20090722PD215.html

Aptina to be sloe supplier of 1.3-megapixel CIS for new Xbox 360, say sources

Hans Wu, Taipei; Meiling Chen, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 22 July 2009]

Aptina has won exclusive rights to supply 1.3-megapixel CMOS image sensors (CIS) for a new version of the Xbox 360 console under Microsoft's Project Natal technology, and shipments of the new Xbox 360 are slated for the second half of 2010, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

The Project Natal technology uses cameras and sensors to detect users' gestures and movements and transforms back to the console, enabling users to control and interact with the Xbox 360 without using a game controller. Thus, CIS is the key component of the technology, the sources noted.

In order to meet increasing CIS demand, Aptina plans to expand foundry capacity at its existing 8-inch wafer fab in Italy, and to look for a foundry parter, the sources said.

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Looks like the machine is under way.

Aptina to be sloe supplier of 1.3-megapixel CIS for new Xbox 360, say sources

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Hans Wu, Taipei; Meiling Chen, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 22 July 2009]

Aptina has won exclusive rights to supply 1.3-megapixel CMOS image sensors (CIS) for a new version of the Xbox 360 console under Microsoft's Project Natal technology, and shipments of the new Xbox 360 are slated for the second half of 2010, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

The Project Natal technology uses cameras and sensors to detect users' gestures and movements and transforms back to the console, enabling users to control and interact with the Xbox 360 without using a game controller. Thus, CIS is the key component of the technology, the sources noted.

In order to meet increasing CIS demand, Aptina plans to expand foundry capacity at its existing 8-inch wafer fab in Italy, and to look for a foundry parter, the sources said.

So are they using cheap stuff or expensive stuff?

The people who said this are the same people who said blu-ray would be coming to the 360

Matt - can you provide the Digitimes article?

I don't think calling out a specific supplier, and being wrong would do anything but warrant a lawsuit for falsified information.

Interesting they named Lite-On as the supposed supplier of the BR-DVDs. I guess one does need to chalk this up as rumor :-\

In other news, I'm surprised that Digitimes didn't get sued.

Well Shooter McGavin. Maybe the machines aren't rolling. Seems like people can make up whatever they want about companies and not get in trouble.

cheap very yep. CMOS and 1.3 megapixel.

well cheap phone have CMOS a 2mpx and only a few use CCD.

well if the sensors  are good maybe... sony partner with onmivision to make a almost free of noise ps3 eye also sony builts it own CMOS and CCD sensors.

noise signals can damage the input, and noise it likely to happen CMOS sensor, that's why it's cheap, for pictures you can postprocess and reduce noise but for videos it's hard, if the input have noise, output like going to be bad too, thats what happen in demo at E3 under not so great lighting condition caused a wrong output and the bone deformation you probably saw.

natal will require good lighting to work correctly, as it's now 1.3mpx CMOS (VGA 30fps or so does my HP pavilion 1.3mpx sensor.) it's not much better quality as Ps3 Eye that can even do in 120fps QVGA and 60fps in VGA. and the PS3 eye is 2mpx CMOS.

oh and for motion capture, studios built very expensive motion capture places.. that have tons of cameras to detect movement, and use high quality CCD sensors, and even that way sometimes it's a bit quirky and require  a person to fix a few things.

You do know that Natal shoots out its own infra red bursts.  Lighting conditions do not matter, at least for the motion control.  They even have video where they turn off the lights and play with Natal.  I am quite sure they do not need more than 1.3 million pixels of depth information to accurately capture multiple people's skeletons.

http://www.gamertagradio.com/vbportal/forums/showthread.php?p=69293

EDIT:  I also disagree completely that it was output from the depth detection device that caused the avatar issue.  It was almost definitely a software issue.  Since Natal can only detect depth of a two dimensional plane, the act of turning around needs some fancy algorithms to compute, not impossible, but it obviously needs work.  That is where the issue lies.