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GlobeNewswire: Himax updates on its imaging business in 2021:"Himax is pleased to report that the company’s ultralow power AI image sensing total solution successfully entered into mass production in Q4 last year for a major tech name over a mainstream application. The company reached this major milestone just one year after it delivered the first samples, a remarkable achievement and an illustration of the robustness of AI solution. [I'd guess that this major customer is Amazon Ring and the product is video doorbell.]
The company is highly encouraged by the early success it has seen with ultralow power AI image sensing business thus far after a leading customer adopted it for a mainstream application. Himax expects to see more design-wins awarded across a broad customer base and a high variety of applications leading to robust sales growth for this new high margin product line.
Himax’s ultralow power AI image sensing total solution incorporates its ultralow power CMOS image sensor, proprietary AI processor and CNN-based AI algorithm. As reported earlier, the sizable order for a top-tier name customer’s mainstream application successfully entered production in Q4 last year, marking another impressive milestone for company’s new AI business within just one year since its initial release. The company will give further details after the end customer’s official announcement. Himax has also made good progress on this mainstream application with other leading vendors where the number of design-in projects is increasing. In addition to the success story, the second application Himax expects to see significant volume is in automatic meter reading (AMR) where AI total solution has been widely adopted by numerous customers across a wide geographical area in China. Himax’s power-saving AI cameras, deployed over the existing installed base of traditional water meters, enable the water meter to automatically collect consumption data with AI operating locally on the edge. The device transmits only byte-sized metadata to the server for billing and in-time detection of abnormal consumption or leakage, eliminating the need for manual reading. The battery pack has a lifetime of over 5 years, greatly outperforming conventional AMR solutions which usually are in a bulky form with large battery packs and, without local AI capability, have to transmit massive image data to the cloud to perform meter reading.
The company is already seeing accelerated deployment of AI solutions to a wide range of applications, including notebook, home appliances, utility meter, automotive, battery-powered surveillance camera, panoramic video conferencing, and medical, among other things. Moreover, new design-in sockets are on the way as it looks to leverage the collaboration with leading cloud service partners, such as Microsoft Azure and Google TensorFlow, on their edge-to-cloud platform to drive further adoption on applications such as smart home, smart office, healthcare, agriculture, retail and factory automation. Last but not least, Himax is seeing numerous design-in activities of AI solution for endoscope, an area the company is extremely excited about that may represent an extraordinary game changer for the health examination industry. Himax will report more detail in due course. Himax is very encouraged by the traction this relatively new product line has generated in a short amount of time and expect to see increasing sales contribution through 2022 and beyond."
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