Another Quad Pixel AF sensor patent application

It stands to reason as Canon perfects it's smaller design rule processes necessary for ADC on sensor and also for DPAF (Dual Pixel Auto Focus) sensors in general, that they look to improve the vertical orientation auto focus of DPAF sensors.

One way of doing this is via Quad pixel AF, this is another patent application dealing with the fundamentals.

One problem with both Dual Pixel AF and now, Quad Pixel AF sensors is that each time you "split" a pixel, you lose some efficiency becuase you have to actually split the darn pixel up.

This is another patent application (Japan Patent Application 2017-228829) that improves the function of Quad Pixel AF sensors by optimizing the signal output from each quad pixel.

Could this be the next generation of sensors from Canon? Quite possibly, however, there's alot of fundamental tech that canon has to implement to make these sensors, and it would surprise me that the release of quad pixel sensors wouldn't also see the introduction of a stacked sensor.