There was a discussion some time ago about whether Canon still needs to use "segmented exposure" to make its 24x36mm sensors. That is, using several exposures of the silicon wafer in the stepper to etch a single sensor.
The answer is apparently yes, accordng to Canon at http://www.canon.com/technology/device/01.html, copyright 2006, from which I quote:

Yet another myth busted about why Canon makes and uses 24x36mm sensors in a few percent of its DSLRs while Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Sony, Pentax, Konica-Minolta etc. stay with sensor formats no bigger than 16x24mm.

This was explained in an IEEE paper or some other EE document I read a while ago.

They had planned this from the very beginning. The whole point is the CMOS technology works with multiple exposures whereas they couldn't make it work with CCD, I believe having to do with the CCD chips having the amplifiers at the ends of rows/columns as opposed to at each photosite. It had something to do with the signals having trouble crossing the boundaries when they tried to do it with CCD.

Sounds more like a clever solution then anything else.

Taken any good pictures lately?

benInMA,
you have an amazing knack for finding false reasons for preferring Canon and its choices over all alternatives.
The fact is that large CCD sensors can also be made with this multiple exposure method. All the medium format sensors are made this way as far as I know, as well as the CCD that Matsushita made for Canon's use in the original Canon 1D.


P. S. What is this Canon nonsense of using "APS-H" as a name for the 28.7x19.1mm format of their EOS-1D models? Are they embarrassed to call it "1.3x crop" like everyone else does?

APS-H is the 30.2x16.7mm native frame size of the APS film system, with the 16:9 aspect ratio of HDTV, which is where the "H" comes from. (APS cameras get APS-C format with a crop to 25.1x16.7mm, to fit the 3:2 shape of 4"x6" snapshot prints.)

I think this must be another gift from the Creative Naming Department at Canon (obviously the most highly paid specialists they have), who have just decided to extend their franchise to include image formats. Remember, these are the guys that gave us 30D and D30 (anybody remember which one came first?), not to mention 1D, 1Ds, 1DsMKII, 1DsMKIIn, and probably soon 1Ds3D0MKIIItHisisnOtaNiKoN.

Eric