Kodak is planning to release its own CMOS sensor in a Kodak camera and several Motorola mobile phones by the end of the year the company has said.

The announcement was made at the JPMorgan Technology Conference in Boston by the company’s president Antonio Perez.

Although details are still sketchy as to the specific details, the Kodak President said that the new camera would have a Kodak-developed CMOS chip and be a 5-megapixel camera.

New Motorola handsets with the sensor would be shown in the new year.

"Our CMOS sensors have been well advancing for many years. And now we will have the ability to embed the sensor in the phone with all the richness we have with our imaging software. It will allow us to make the sensor, the most important part of the camera, able to manage the light, colour, and the like", said Perez.

The move would signal a significant change in direction for Motorola who up until now have steered away from offering high-end cameras in its range. The original iconic RAZR only featured a VGA camera.

The new camera phone would be likely to go up against the Cyber-shot range from Sony Ericsson and the Carl-Veiss camera phones from Nokia.