During this summer break, all the virtual world is full of rumours about the new Leica, even with dates such as September 12th... EVF yes, EVF no, AF yes, AF no... Some new interesting details have appeared that will be included in the new system, or not...
Seen in
Patent DE102012009975A1 - Opto-electronic rangefinder integrated camera, has pick-up modules comparing ... - Google Patents
Almost in 2015 already, a Leica patent was published (and this is not very usual lately), in which a new rangefinder camera was defined including an electronic rangefinder based in phase detection (as the AF of reflex cameras) projected in an optical (at least, if not hybrid) viewfinder. The reflex AF is a rangefinder based on the base distance of approximate the lens width, in this Leica patent, the base distance is the one between the rangefinder sensors and lenses (5 and 6 in fig.1) and we all know that the rangefinder precision is based on this base distance multiplied by magnification... see the link for extended details...
It seems that the sensor could be from a "new kid on the block", as the one in the Q, TPSCo (TowerJazz Panasonic Semiconductor Co. Ltd) from Israel. There is very little info, but this company has an interesting technology that inserts a light pipe in the sensor in order to channel more photons down to the silicon gaining a huge amount of QE (the known
quantum efficiency), for some sensors they claim more than 70% of QE (the KAF-18500 of the M9 has much less than 50%)... this would imply probably second to none sensibility...
Seen in
https://www.tpsemico.com/technology#tab_cis
Well, we will soon see in what crystallizes all of this... soon in our theatre...