OEM Camera Sensors for a computer project

Question

First off I'm not sure if this is the place for this question, but it seems to be the closest fit.

I want to buy a small camera sensor (like for netbooks/phones), from what I have read on wikipedia my target sensor is:

12MP(not that important)
1080p recording
CMOS, preferably backlit
Only have to buy one

now for obvious reasons I want to buy an OEM sensor instead of ripping one out of a camera, also if I where to hook one up to Windows CE, Android, Meego or Linux would I need to make a driver, and where could I buy a sensor?

Answer 1

Hooking up a raw sensor is a monumental task (for a CMOS sensor, you typically have at roughly one line for each row/column, meaning ~3k x 4K connections stuffed into less than an inch on each side).

A typical netbook, cell phone, etc., uses a packaged camera module with some sort of serial connection to the outside world. You can get some primarily video (i.e., 1.3 - 2 MP range) modules from Sparkfun Electronics (low resolution, but cheap -- for only one, the shipping may be close to as much as the module itself). For higher resolution, you might consider Leopard Imaging. They have everything from relatively bare modules to complete development boards (with matching version of Linux available for free download).