Prize for cell camera innovators

Published on Sunday 3 February 2008 20:50

RESEARCHERS from a Scottish university are set to be honoured today for their role in developing the mobile phone camera.

Electronic engineers Peter Denyer, David Renshaw, Wang Guoyu and Lu Mingying worked on camera technology at Edinburgh University from the early 1980s that resulted in the tiny cameras now used by millions worldwide every day.

They are to be awarded the 80,000 Rank Prize – set up by the late Lord Rank to recognise scientific advances that have benefited mankind – at a ceremony in London for their work in developing and commercialising the technology.

The group's work started with simple black and white devices, before moving on to more complex cameras. By 1993 they had generated colour images.

The researchers formed an early university spin-off business, which subsequently became the first such project to become a public company.

Their business was bought by STMicroelectronics in 1999, and today hundreds of millions of cameras based on their technology are in use, in devices ranging from mobile phones to optical computer mice.

Professor Denyer, who holds an honorary chair at the University of Edinburgh, said: "We are immensely pleased to receive this recognition."