foveon x3 sensor which captures images in digital single lens reflex cameras such as the sigma corporation sd9 sd10 sd14 and sd15 as well as in the compacts dp1 dp2 and polaroid x530 . the company founded in 1997 by carver mead richard lyon richard b. merrill richard turner richard nedwich and others was a spin off of national semiconductor and synaptics . the founding directors were federico faggin president and ceo of synaptics brian halla chairman president ceo of national semiconductor and dick sanquini vp of national semiconductor . it is based in santa clara california . foveon was initially known for their high end digital portrait camera systems built around a color separation beam splitter prism assembly . later the x3 pixel became the companies main product both the prism system and the x3 technology derive their benefit from using all the light and sensing all colors at all locations . foveon inc. was previously known as foveonics . the name is derived from the fovea of the human eye which enables sharp imaging while reading or watching television . george gilder has written the silicon eye which tells the story of foveon and of carver mead and the other founders . foveon had no public comment on the book . on 11 november 2008 when federico faggin was the ceo all shares of foveon stock were acquired by sigma corporation . the company continues today in a new location as a wholly owned portion of sigma . of the original staff rudy guttosch remains . external links edit foveon website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title foveon & oldid 740873463 categories companies based in santa clara californiatechnology companies established in 1997photography companies of the united statestechnology companies based in the san francisco bay area navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutschitalianonederlands polski sloven ina edit links this page was last modified on 23 september 2016 at 21 36 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view