Sharp Japan today announced the RJ21R3BAOPT CCD Sensor and chipset, with a 4 milliion effective pixels (4.2 megapixel total) and "digicam lens friendly" size identical to this years 3 megapixel sensors (1/1.8") we're certainly likely to see this CCD used in next years digital cameras.

The new CCD is actually grouped as a chipset of six chips: CCD (RJ21R3BA0PT), Signal Processing DSP (LR38666Y), Timing for CCD (LR38620), 10-BIT ADC (IR3Y49M1) and LCD Interface IC (RB5P0060M). Power consumption of the overall system has also been reduced from 1,245mW (3 megapixel) to 1,025mW (new 4 megapixel).

Sharp RJ21R3BA0PT specifications

The LSI DSP chip also has capability to drive colour processing, gamma, auto focus, white balance, aperture, JPEG output, USB and interfaces for CompactFlash & SmartMedia.

Credit goes to digitalcamera.gr.jp for first noticing this announcement.