This is an interview with Samsung on the technical innovations in the NX1. We thought this was an amazing camera, but the more you read about it, the more amazing it is. It might be the most advanced camera being sold today in every respect.
http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/09/27/photokina-interview-samsung-nx1-redefine-pro-performance-quantum-leap-tech* 240 fps image tracking and recognition right off the sensor, every pixel. Between the sensor and the DSP, it /could/ do 240 fps at 28MP, and has done that on a test bench.
* "Our fill efficiency is much higher than most of the industry, thanks in large part to moving to 65nm design rules for our latest sensor"
* "when we switch to copper [replacing polysilicon for the wiring on the chip], we've moved to a much more conductive material, which helps us in heat dissipation, it helps us in reducing resistance"
* "even though we're BSI, we're cutting the pixel depth even more that way, which gives us more sensitivity and efficiency. So you'll find when you actually get these to test that the high ISO noise on these is much lower than it should be, if you follow the curve down in terms of pixel pitch, because of BSI, because of copper, because of the more efficient microlenses we've put on. The microlenses on these appear to cover almost 100%."
* "it's my understanding that we have the tightest design rules of any sensor manufacturing process used for cameras by a factor of two, and by general average probably close to a factor of four or five."
* "The biggest change is the structure of the Image Signal Processor. The DRIMe V ISP is very different. Most ISPs have key parts of the processing hardwired to get the needed speed. What's really new with the DRIMe V is that the "hardwiring" can be reconfigured."
* Tracking: "speed can be anywhere from around 80km/h to around 160km/h [50 mph to 100 mph]." It's able to use the entire sensor frame for tracking at 240 fps.
* "The DRIMe V actually has a lot of IPs [small hardware circuit blocks] dedicated to noise reduction. It's pretty cool; there are a lot of them, and each one does a different type of noise reduction processing, all at the same time. " The executive can decide a posteriori how much of this processing to utilize.
* "five general purpose cores"
* "the display refreshes at about 54 fps, but the key thing is that the EVF and the sensor are sychronized. The two are genlocked, so there's always just a 5 ms lag between what's hitting the sensor and what's being displayed on the EVF's current scan line. I think we're the only ones who can do this."
* "It's 4:2:2 out the HDMI 1.4 port; it's 4:2:0 as it goes to the SD. And it's H.265 to the card for both HD and 4K, so whatever video mode you're saving to SD card, it's using H.265, so you're going to get much more efficient and better-quality HD out of it."