Waterloo - Two scientists who invented the first semiconductor image sensor have been awarded part of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics. Canadian-born Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith were honored by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for inventing the CCD (charge-coupled device) in 1969 at Bell Labs in New Jersey. Charles K. Kao also shared the prize for his work in fiber optic light transmission.

Boyle and Smith's discovery, using the photoelectric effect to capture image information on silicon instead of chemical film, led to the wide variety of digital image sensors we use today in consumer, industrial, and scientific applications from digital cameras to automated inspection to astronomy.

When Boyle and Smith published their work, it inspired a host of digital imaging pioneers, including DALSA founder and chairman Dr. Savvas Chamberlain, who was then a professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Beginning in 1970, Dr. Chamberlain's research led to pioneering improvements in NMOS and CCD fabrication, VLSI MOSFETs and high-performance CCD image sensors, and eventually to his founding of DALSA in 1980.