Spectronet publishes presentations of two small German image sensor companies - Trinamix and Andanta:As for 3D imaging, Trinamix complements its initial "chemical 3D imager" idea with a more traditional structured light approach:Andanta too publishes some info about the company and its products:

IHS Markit sees a large potential for optical fingerprint sensors in smartphones:

OPPO, one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in China, signs a strategic licensing agreement with Corephotonics, the licensor of dual camera technologies.

PRNewswire: Anitoa, a Menlo Park CA startup since 2012, announces the volume production of its Ultra-low-light CMOS bio-optical sensor, ULS24.

ABI Research: “Face recognition on smartphones is five times easier to spoof than fingerprint recognition,” stated ABI Research Industry Analyst Dimitrios Pavlakis.

Omnivision patent application US20180097030 "Stacked image sensor with shield bumps between interconnects" by Sohei Manabe, Keiji Mabuchi, Takayuki Goto, Vincent Venezia, Boyd Albert Fowler, and Eric A. G.

Remember the times when ISP startups were popular - Nethra, Insilica, Alphamosaic, Nucore, Atsana, Mtekvision, etc? With AI and machine learning in fashion, this time might come back. EETimes reports that UK-based Spectral Edge has raised $5.3m.

MDPI Sensors keep publishing expanded papers from 2017 International Image Sensor Workshop. ST Micro and University of Edinburgh present "High Dynamic Range Imaging at the Quantum Limit with Single Photon Avalanche Diode-Based Image Sensors" by Neale A.W.

ALA News: ULIS says it has achieved unmatched performance with its bolometer sensor that now meets speeds of fast imaging applications. It has gained a response time that is four-times greater than standard bolometers without any trade-off in sensitivity.

TechInsights compares Sony and Samsung 3-layer stacked sensors found in different version of Galaxy S9 smartphone:Sony "IMX345 general structure is similar to the IMX400, the world’s first 3-layer stacked imager from the year-old Sony Xperia XZs:""In contrast to Sony’s custom-DRAM-in-the-middle ...

BusinessWire: ON Semi introduces its first CMOS sensors with NIR+ technology combining HDR with enhanced low light performance for high-end security and surveillance cameras.The AR0522 is a 1/2.5-inch 5.1MP sensor based on a 2.

Brookman Technology publishes Youtube demo of its ToF camera of Dynamic ambient light suppression (DALS) by Multi-tap sensing technology with Short Pulse Modulation (SPM):

VLSI Symposium to be held on June 18-22, 2018 in Honolulu, HI, publishes lists circuits and technology accepted papers with few image sensor related ones:A Two‐Tap NIR Lock‐In Pixel CMOS Image Sensor with Background Light Cancelling Capability for Non-Contact Heart Rate Detection,Chen Cao, Shizu...

EETimes publishes Corephotonics article "Triple Cameras: Are Three Better Than Two?" by Gil Abraham. Few quotes:"In this article, we will discuss some motivations for adding a third camera to the smartphone imaging complex, the challenges it brings and some possible solutions....

MDPI Sensors journal publishes a paper "Multi-Aperture-Based Probabilistic Noise Reduction of Random Telegraph Signal Noise and Photon Shot Noise in Semi-Photon-Counting Complementary-Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Image Sensor" by Haruki Ishida, Keiichiro Kagawa, Takashi Komuro, Bo Zhang, Min-Woong Seo,...

BusinessWire: Ambarella introduces the CV2 camera SoC combining advanced computer vision, image processing, 4Kp60 video encoding, and stereovision in a single chip.

PRNewswire: RTI International, a nonprofit research institute, spins-out a venture company, SWIR Vision Systems Inc.

Columbia University, Northwest University and University of Tokio publish a paper "Stretchcam: Zooming Using Thin, Elastic Optics" by Daniel C. Sims, Oliver Cossairt, Yonghao Yu, Shree K. Nayar:"Stretchcam is a thin camera with a lens capable of zooming with small actuations.

PRNewswire: The pixel race goes on in microbolometric sensors. Leonardo DRS launches of its Tenum 640 thermal imager, the first uncooled 10um pixel thermal camera core for OEMs.

Canon's EF-M 22mm f2 is a compact prime lens for EOS mirrorless cameras, upon which it delivers classic 35mm equivalent coverage. The f2 focal ratio can introduce a little blurring and the focusing is smooth, but the key selling point is the size and walk-around flexibility.

Cadence announces the Tensilica Vision Q6 DSP, its latest DSP for embedded vision and AI built on a new, faster processor architecture. The fifth-generation Vision Q6 DSP offers 1.5X greater vision and AI performance than its predecessor, the Vision P6 DSP, and 1.

TechInsights publishes reverse engineering of Samsung first 0.9um pixel sensor found in Vivo V7+ smartphone 24MP selfie camera:"We did not expect to see the Samsung S5K2X7SP image sensor until Q2, 2018…but here it is in the Vivo V7+.

VLSI Symposia to be held on June 18-22 in Honolulu, Hawaii, publishes its official Circuit and Technology programs. In total, there are 8 image sensor papers:C7‐1 A 252 × 144 SPAD Pixel FLASH LiDAR with 1728 Dual‐clock 48.8 ps TDCs, Integrated Histogramming and 14.

Esticast Research and Consulting publishes Shortwave Infra-Red Camera Market report. Tke key findings in the report:North America held the largest chunk of market share in 2016 owing to rapid technical development and increasing applications.

IFNews quotes Isaiah Research forecast on dual camera mobile phone market:"Even though the growth of overall smartphone shipments only reaches 2%~3% in 2017, Isaiah Research is still optimistic about the dual camera market growth in 2018.

Sony polarization sensors get more and more customers. Teledyne DALSA introduces its Genie Nano camera built around the Sony Pregius 5.1MP polarized image sensor.

ExtremeTech: Ambarella self-driving test vehicle is a rare case of LiDAR-less platform:"its EVA (Embedded Vehicle Autonomy) development vehicle built on its CVFlow architecture and a phalanx of 20 cameras powered by 16 of its CV1 image and vision processing SoCs.

Image Sensors Auto Europe 2018 program has been published and and has a number of image sensing papers, primarily about LiDARs:LiDAR past, present, and future: seeing through the noiseAnand Gopalan | CTO of Velodyne LiDAR, Inc.

BusinessWire: ON Semiconductor announces KAE-08152 that shares the same 8.1MP resolution and 4/3 optical format as the existing KAE-08151, but incorporates an enhanced pixel design that doubles NIR QE at 850 nm – critical for surveillance, microscopy, and ophthalmology.

Canon publishes promotional videos of its 120MXS 120MP 2.

GlobeNewswire: Himax has decided to exercise its options to fully acquire Emza Visual Sense Ltd. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the second quarter, 2018.

Powerchip files US20180040651 patent application "Image sensor and related fabrication method" by Shih-ping Lee, Yu-an Chen, Hsiu-wen Huang, and Chuan-hua Chang.

BusinessWire: Cepton Technologies unveils its Vista LiDAR sensor, said to deliver the best-in-class performance to the automotive market when compared to current LiDAR technologies. The 120-line-equivalent scanner delivers 200 meters of range and 0.2 degrees of spatial resolution.

BusinessWire: Huawei P20 Pro flagship smartphone features triple rear camera and DxOMark Photo score of 114 points:"The HUAWEI P20 Pro features a Leica triple camera with the highest total pixel count on a smartphone – the camera configuration is comprised of a 40MP RGB sensor, a 20MP monochrome s...

SiOnyx Kickstarter campaign seems to be quite successful and has met its goal in just 1 day:

Bloomberg, Teslarati: A 3 year-old Chinese startup SenseTime raises $600m from Alibaba Group, Singaporean state firm Temasek Holdings, retailer Suning.com, and other investors at a valuation of more than $3b ($4.

PRNewswire: LargeSense LLC launches the LS911, said to be the first medium format 8x10 digital camera for sale. Everything in this announcement looks, well, impressively large:9x11-inch-large digital sensor.

NIT presents its NSC 1701 HDR Global Shutter CMOS sensor featuring a new Light Flicker Mitigation mode and a 12b digital output.1280 x 1024 Pixels Resolution 6.8µm Pixel Pitch On Chip 12 bits ADC 1.

PRNewswire: OmniVision announces the 8MP OS08A20 equipped with 2um pixel with Nyxel NIR technology. The OS08A20 is the first sensor to combine Nyxel technology with PureCel pixel architecture.

Optics.org, Techcrunch: Colorado Springs-based image sensor and ROIC design house Black Forest Engineering has been acquired by a LiDAR startup Luminar:"“This year for us is all about scale.

PRNewswire: Qualcomm announces its Vision Intelligence Platform featuring the Company's first family of SoCs for IoT built in 10nm FinFET process. The QCS605 and QCS603 SoCs deliver computing for on-device camera processing and machine learning across a wide range of IoT applications.

IEEE Spectrum says that photon shot noise becomes a major limiting factor in EUV photolithography. The EUV wavelength of 13.5nm is much shorter than the commonly used 193nm, meaning there is much less photons per each Watt of the light power."...

BusinessWire: ON Semi introduces the industry’s first 1/1.7-inch 2.1MP CMOS sensor featuring the newly developed 4.2μm BSI pixels. The AR0221 is said to deliver class-leading low light sensitivity for industrial applications.

Samsung publishes an interview with Galaxy S9 fast camera design team:"We were able to achieve a readout speed that is four times faster than conventional cameras thanks to a three-layer stacked image sensor that includes the CMOS image sensor itself, a fast readout circuit, and a dedicated dynamic ...

SystemPlus publishes reverse enginering report of ams ambient light sensor found in iPhone 8:"ams AG is a long-time supplier for Apple’s iPhone and has the biggest share of the ambient light sensor (ALS) market.

University of Illinois publishes Eric Fossum March 29, 2018 presentation on QIS:" The Quanta Image Sensor (QIS) is a possible 3rd generation solid-state image sensor technology based on photon-counting.

Yole Developpement report "Wafer Starts for More Than Moore Applications" shows that CIS consumes more wafers than RF devices and MEMS, but less than power management devices:"We expect 12-inch wafer demand to grow from 3.3 million units in 2017 to 7.

Reuters publishes an article on Uber self-driving Volvo XC90 sensing module comparing it with Ford Fusion autonomous cars that Uber used in its older fleet.

Below is just a couple of nice videos recently published on Youtube:

SiOnyx presents Aurora action camera based on Black Silicon image sensor that it will be launching on Kickstarter on April 20th: