Camera Processors

[Satyaa]

I am interested to know about the processors built into cameras. I searched the web and this forum, but didn't find much information. There are some dedicated Wikipedia pages for DIGIC and EXPEED processors, but they have more historical information than technical.

I know that each camera maker has their own processor series/name (DIGIC, EXPEED, MAESTRO, etc.) but I am trying to find any comparisons between them. At the end they all try to do similar tasks, but I suspect the "how" and the "speed" differentiate them.

In computer world, there are comparisons between Intel and AMD processors, as an example. They cover the designs, performance, bandwidth, capacity, etc. In a similar fashion, I am trying to understand how Canon's latest processor compares to Nikon's latest or Panasonic's latest.

I also feel that camera processors may be closer to SOC type heavily integrated designs. I have no basis for this but am just guessing based on their dedicated purpose and application.

Could you point me to any online sources where I can read about these.

This is just for my curiosity.

Thanks!

 

[jiberlin]

What is called 'processor' (like EXPEED, DIGIC, etc.) are SOC the contain one or more processor cores with many additional hardware. In most cameras there are multiple different processor-cores:

• 'Normal' processors, in most cases some variant of ARM-architecture
• Digital signal processors
• and additional special processing hardware, more or less 'hardwired'

There is no useful benchmark for camera processors besides maximum continuous frame rate (set heavily depends on speed of storage media) or auto-focus speed.

You can get some information on the wikipedia pages for the different camera SOC.

 

[martinhb]

What is called 'processor' (like EXPEED, DIGIC, etc.) are SOC the contain one or more processor cores with many additional hardware. In most cameras there are multiple different processor-cores:

• 'Normal' processors, in most cases some variant of ARM-architecture
• Digital signal processors
• and additional special processing hardware, more or less 'hardwired'

There is no useful benchmark for camera processors besides maximum continuous frame rate (set heavily depends on speed of storage media) or auto-focus speed.

You can get some information on the wikipedia pages for the different camera SOC.

As stated in this link, regarding Sony hardware :

https://openmemories.readthedocs.io/hardware.html

There are multiple cores running & controlling different functions. Presumably, like the Lord of the Rings there's one processor that binds them all.