Eric R Fossum, PhD, has been awarded the 2026 Charles Stark Draper Prize for Engineering – the "Nobel Prize of Engineering" – and I don’t think anybody within the photography community could rebuke the recipient of this prestigious accolade.
After all, most photographers take Eric’s invention for granted every single day. I am, of course, talking about the CMOS image sensor – or more specifically, the active-pixel advancement that resulted in the consumer camera image sensor we know today.
According to the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF), Eric joined NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories in 1990, and was ultimately tasked with designing a sensor that was more energy-efficient and offered greater resistance to radiation in space – all while enabling the reduction of the camera's size.
Complementary metal oxide semiconductor (or CMOS) sensors already existed, but not as we know them today. Forza Silicon highlights Eric's role in creating a new type of pixel by combining active-pixel sensor tech with intra-pixel charge transfer.
This enabled the necessary tech to live on an integrated chip, unlike CCD sensors that require more external circuitry.
According to the NIHF: "Each chip contained arrays of light-sensitive pixels, each with its own amplifier. Circuits within the chip allowed functions like noise reduction, analog-to-digital conversion and digital image processing."
The technology was patented in 1995 and is now used in over 6 billion cameras every year.
Today, Eric is the John H Krehbiel Senior Professor for Emerging Technologies at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth, New Hampshire, where he is still researching image sensors.
Alongside his Draper Prize, he’s also an NIHF inductee, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, received the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, the National Medal for Technology and Innovation, a Technical Emmy Award and the Edwin Land Medal.
Be it the camera on your phone or the camera in your bag, the likelihood is that it wouldn’t be the same without Eric R Fossum’s camera-on-a-chip invention. One of the most – if not the most – important advancements in digital camera history to date.
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