We finally have some good evidence that the sensor in the Nikon D850 is actually made by a company called Towerjazz and not Sony, as many people thought. This is a company based in Israel, and is 49% own by Panasonic. They have some history for making backside illuminated sensors for scientific purposes, and also they make sensors for Leica. The sensor is designed by Nikon, which doesn’t really mean very much, they designed the components that deliver the light to the sensor. Its not surprising that Nikon do not make the sensors themselves, the infrastructure and expertise required is huge, and if they had that capacity we would know about it.

Interestingly the last Nikon camera with a Panasonic sensor was the Nikon D700. Get a more complete story from Theoria Apophasis and his source on Youtube.