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ST presentation at IoT World in May 2017 unveils a number of its future ToF products:

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ifm publishes a demo video of O3D ToF camera advantages for cars, based on PMD 64 x 16 pixels sensor:

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Teledyne e2v publishes two new presentations on image sensors for astronomy applications. "Teledyne e2v sensors for adaptive optics: wavefront sensing on ELTs - high rate, large format, and low noise" by Paul Jorden, D. Bourke, R. Cassidy, M. Fryer, P. Jerram, S. Moore, and J Pratlong:


Another presentation "e2v CMOS (and CCD) sensors (and systems) for astronomy" by Paul Jorden expands on NIR sensitive pixels:

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GlobeNewsWire: Cista Design is developing its next generation mobile sensors on SMIC 130nm BSI platform. Wilson Du, CEO and President of Cista System Corp. stated, “The low leakage SMIC process uses three aluminum metal layers for reduced cost and supports pixel sizes down to 1.4-micron for implementing our 8MP resolution CIS. We needed a reliable intellectual property vendor of OTP NVM for the SMIC 130nm BIS process node. We chose Kilopass because of its availability on the SMIC process and their reputation as a vendor with a breadth of offerings on the major foundries worldwide."

Possibly, Cista talks about C8390 sensor:

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Systemplus publishes reverse engineering reports of Melexis MLX75023 and TI OPT8241 ToF imagers, both based on Softkinetic pixel technology.

Melexis targets its sensors to automotive applications and its sensors has been already integrated in BMW in-car gesture recognition system:


TI chip, on the other hand, targets industrial applications:

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Deyan Levski, University of Oxford, UK, publishes a companion video to his IISW 2017 paper "A 12-bit Column-Parallel Flash TDC-Interpolated Ramp ADC with Online Digital Delay Element Correction" explaining a bug causing a larger than expected DNL in the ADC - quite a rare, possibly unique, video where an original designer explains his own bugs:

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IEEE Spectrum publishes an article in Chip Hall of Fame series on 1991 1.3MP Kodak CCD KAF-1300 used in $25,000 DCS 100 camera:

“At the time, 1 megapixel was a magic number,” says Eric Stevens, the chip’s lead designer. The chip—a true two-phase CCD—became the basis for future CCD sensors, helping to kick-start the digital photography revolution. What, by the way, was the very first photo made with the KAF-1300? “Uh,” says Stevens, “we just pointed the sensor at the wall of the laboratory.”

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Omnivision patent application US20170179189 "Curved Image Sensor" by Yuanwei Zheng, Gang Chen, Duli Mao, Dyson Tai, Arvind Kumar, Hung Chih Chang, and Chih-Wei Hsiung proposes using CMP dishing to make curved image sensors:

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CEA-LETI delivers a full-frame (24x32mm2) 20.4MP curved CMOS sensor prototype for astronomical applications:

"By directly correcting the field curvature in the focal plane, curved detectors help saving about one third of the optics, usually used as field flatteners, and then avoids undesirable distortion effect either in the image and also on the optical properties across the field of view.

After ten years of effort to convince the astronomical community about the benefits offered by curved focal planes, the activity is now ongoing around the world, with academic developments at ESO, Stanford, MIT, but also at the industrial level with recent realizations from Sony and Microsoft."

“Soon to be off-the-shelf components for civil applications (cameras, bio-medical) these breakthrough components will blossom in the focal planes of any telescope in the future,” said Emmanuel Hugot from the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille who leads the curved sensor program together with Bernard Delabre from the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

Fully functional prototype 20MP full frame (24x32mm²) visible sensor by CEA-LETI

An Arxiv.org and OSA Optics Express paper talks about the telescope potential improvements with the curved image sensor.

Thanks to JG for the link!

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Yole Developpement publishes few more bits from its oncoming report on CIS market:

"Looking more deeply into mobile phone applications, they are clearly dominating in revenue and volume. Smartphones are progressively evolving from having two cameras to having four. The rear and front camera are potentially being replaced by one to two dual cameras, and now also extra cameras for 3D sensing, face recognition and potentially for augmented reality applications. We will soon have as many image sensors as microphones in a mobile phone – but the value is much higher. The dual camera setup increased camera module value per smartphone toward $25 in 2016 and this will grow toward $30 in 2017."

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The Register reports about KAIST paper on automotive LiDAR spoofing published at the International Association for Cryptologic Research's pre-print archive: "Illusion and Dazzle: Adversarial Optical Channel Exploits against Lidars for Automotive Applications" by Hocheol Shin, Dohyun Kim, Yujin Kwon, and Yongdae Kim.

"In this work, we have presented and experimentally verified two types of attacks that can severely degrade the reliability of lidars. Although we have listed many mitigative approaches in the discussion, they are either technically/economically infeasible or are not definitive solutions to the presented attacks. We do not advocate the complete abandonment of the transition toward autonomous driving, because we believe that its advantages can outweigh the disadvantages, if realistic adversarial scenarios are appropriately mitigated. However, such considerations are currently absent; therefore, automakers and device manufacturers need to start considering these future threats before too late."

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Albert Theuwissen makes his IISW 2017 papers avaliable for download.

216. Xiaoliang Ge, Albert Theuwissen : A 0.5e- Temporal Noise CMOS Image Sensor with Charge-Domain CDS and Period-Controlled Variable Conversion Gain.


217. Fei Wang, Liqiang Han, Albert Theuwissen : A Highly Linear CMOS Image Sensor with a Digitally Assisted Linearity Calibration Method.

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DPReview publishes an analysis of banding artifacts in Sony full-frame A9 camera with electronic rolling shutter. Apparently, its stacked stacked sensor reads 12 rows in parallel to progress through the entire 24MP sensor in 6.25ms time. This creates noticeable banding artifacts on LED advertisement panels and nearby objects in the examples shot at a soccer game:


DPReview concludes: "The a9's electronic shutter proceeds in 12-row chunks; a mechanical shutter is more analogous to an electronic shutter proceeding line by line, which would yield smoother bands. Not the more hard-edged, lower frequency (and therefore more readily identifiable) 12-row bands that are visually more distracting than if they had been gradual, single-pixel rows transitioning from one color or brightness to another."

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ResearchInChina publishes "Global and China Automotive Camera ADAS Industry Report, 2016-2021:"

"Broadly-defined camera ADAS includes 360-degree surround view system and park assist system. In 2016, broadly-defined camera ADAS shipments totaled roughly 40.1 million sets, of which, park assist (reversing camera) makes up the highest 34% or so, followed by 360-degree surround view system (about 20%) and FCW (about 13.7%). It is expected that by 2021 camera ADAS shipments will reach 71.4 million sets, of which park assist, 360-degree surround view system and AEB will capture 30.5%, 21.2% and 19.5%, separately. Narrowly-defined camera ADAS (excluding 360-degree surround view system and park assist system) shipments totaled approximately 15.2 million sets. By shipments, Continental Automotive, Gentex, Magna, ZF TRW, NIDEC SANKYO, Valeo, Sony and Clarion are successively ranked. In terms of camera ADAS processor, Mobileye, TI, Xilinx, Ambraella, Renesas, Toshiba, Hitachi, ADI and NXP are successively ranked by shipments.

The global camera ADAS market was worth USD2,667 million in 2016, an increase of 21.3%, and is expected to rise 24.4% to USD3,320 million in 2017. With the advent of L3/L4 self-driving in 2020, the deeply-learned embedded system will bring another marketing leap to an estimated USD7,760 million in 2021. Automotive camera module shipments totaled approximately 66.5 million sets in 2016 and are expected to rise 21.5% to 80.8 million sets in 2017 and then 117 million sets in 2021. In the unmanned era, Lidar will enter into rivalry with camera over the position of master sensor and is more likely to win out. Camera module won't see dramatic increase in shipments in the unmanned era."

ResearchInChina keeps believing in stereo camera market potential:

"Technologically, stereo camera's price has gone down and competitiveness has been boosted as shipments increase. Concerning luxury cars, main products of Benz, BMW, JLR and Lexus are likely to be configured with stereo camera in 2021. At the end of 2016, Denso launched small stereo camera, which would find wide application in Toyota compact cars. Besides, Honda and Hyundai are developing stereo camera system. It is predicted that by 2020 stereo camera will win one-third market share. Trifocal essentially as monocular camera poses no threat to stereo camera and has very limited market potential (only to be employed by Tesla and Volvo)."

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While we are at sad news, BillingsGazette reports that John Ladd has passed away. John used to work for Aptina, Rambus, BAE, and Altasens and holds over 70 patents, mostly in image sensor technology, which was an impressive number at his age of 38.

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Omnivision CTO Howard Rhodes died from cancer on June 24, 2017 in a NY hospital. The company says in an email message:

“We are incredibly saddened by the sudden passing of our dear friend and colleague, Dr. Howard E. Rhodes. Part of OmniVision’s leadership team since 2005, Dr. Rhodes’ pioneering work in CMOS imaging has shaped the course of OmniVision, and indeed much of the digital imaging industry. Holding over 200 patents, Dr. Rhodes earned his Ph.D. degree in Solid State Physics from the University of Illinois. His work and contributions to our groundbreaking BSI (backside-illumination technology) have impacted our industry in profound ways and we will be forever grateful for his loyalty, dedication, and technical brilliance. His unwavering determination to see OVT succeed has been an inspiration and, to a great extent, has defined us as a company. Our heartfelt thoughts and condolences go out to his family at this difficult time.”

Omnivision web site has not been updated yet:


Update: Omnivision posted a memorial page on its Facebook site:

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Yole Developpement publishes a report "Status of the CMOS Image Sensor Industry 2017." Few quotes from the report are below:

"CMOS imaging has benefited from huge market demand and a technology-driven environment, resulting in an $11.6B industry in 2016.

The mobile market is key for the CMOS image sensor (CIS) industry. Despite saturation in the number of handsets, the CIS market has been able to maintain a 10.5% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the 2016-2022 period due to the introduction of dual and 3D cameras.

Sony has established itself as industry leader, market and technology wise. However, the 2016 earthquake in Japan slowed down its operation and helped maintain the growth of its close competitors. Indeed, despite Toshiba’s exit from the market, two thirds of players have seen growth in the last year. Samsung, Omnivision and Panasonic have delivered 15% year-on-year growth. Those large players are increasing the weight Asia carries in the CIS industry.

In the US, On Semi has suffered from the public relations mess that followed a fatal crash involving Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving system, which included a Mobileye sensor. Automotive cameras are safety-critical and therefore the reaction is strong if performance does not match expectations.

Another noticeable activity has been STMicroelectronics’ revival of its CIS business through the development of 3D ‘Time of Flight’ (ToF) devices. They will probably be the biggest event of the end of 2017, if they materialize in the Apple iPhone 8 as is rumored.

The impact of 3D semiconductors is currently a key element of the competition. Samsung has finally joined Sony as a provider of stacked back-side illuminated (BSI) sensors. Omnivision and SK Hynix will also soon launch this technology. Meanwhile, SMIC and STMicroelectronics will probably be the next players to unveil their versions of stacked technology.

Increases in CIS production capacity have momentarily stopped due to this stacked trend. This is currently mainly due to Sony, which can source its logic wafers from TSMC. In coming years Sony, Samsung, STMicroelectronics, HLMC and SK Hynix will all announce extra CIS capacity in order to meet market demand, despite stacked BSI adoption."

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Samsung presents its image sensor brand "ISOCELL". First introduced in 2013, ISOCELL technology separates each pixel with a physical barrier that reduces color crosstalk among pixels. This allows a better color fidelity even with smaller pixels.

Samsung ISOCELL is complemented by four technological sub-brands—Bright, Fast, Slim and Dual—that respond to specific market demands:

• ISOCELL Bright sensors deliver bright and sharp images with high color fidelity and reduced noise in low light environments
• ISOCELL Fast sensors provide fast autofocus onto still or moving objects even when dark
• ISOCELL Slim sensors adopt the smallest pixel sizes available in the market at 0.9-1.0um, yet produce high quality images for the slimmest devices
• ISOCELL Dual sensors can be mixed and matched in various combinations on consumer devices to bring about features demanded in the latest dual camera trend

“Samsung ISOCELL is a brand that represents the essence of our leading pixel technologies. We expect the ISOCELL brand to help consumers easily acknowledge and confide in camera performance as well as overall quality of the device,” said Ben Hur, VP of System LSI marketing at Samsung Electronics. “With our advanced image sensor technologies, Samsung will continue to bring innovation to cameras used in smartphones and other applications.”

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IC Insights report says "CMOS image sensor sales are on pace to reach a seventh straight record high this year and nothing ahead should stop this semiconductor product category from breaking more annual records through 2021.

After rising 9% in 2017 to about $11.5 billion, worldwide CMOS image sensors sales are expected to increase by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.7% to $15.9 billion in 2021 from the current record high of $10.5 billion set in 2016, based on the five-year forecast.

Automotive systems are forecast to be the fastest growing application for CMOS image sensors, rising by a CAGR of 48% to $2.3 billion in 2021 or 14% of the market’s total sales that year.

CMOS image sensor sales for cameras in cellphones are forecast to grow by a CAGR of just 2% to $7.6 billion in 2021, or about 47% of the market total versus 67% in 2016 ($7.0 billion). Smartphone applications are getting a lift from dual-camera systems that enable a new depth-of-field effect (known as “bokeh”).

Competition among CMOS image sensor suppliers is heating up for new three-dimensional sensing capability using time-of-flight (ToF) technology and other techniques for 3D imaging and distance measurements... CMOS technology has progressed to the point of supporting integration of ToF functions into small chip modules and potentially down to a single die. Sony, Samsung, OmniVision, ON Semiconductor, STMicroelectronics, and others have rolled out and developed 3D image sensors. Infineon has also jumped into the image sensor arena with a 3D offering that is built in ToF-optimized CMOS technology."

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Techcrunch reports that Sony is to demo an integrated Softkinetic ToF camera inside Xperia smartphone paired with KeyLemon software for "3D face recognition system that could let users authenticate themselves with one photo." Softkinetic PR partially confirms this info.

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Imatest publishes Norman Koren presentation "Challenges in Automotive Image Quality" presented in Autosens Detroit in May:

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Ishikawa Watanabe Laboratory of Tokyo University shows how throwing a high-speed camera up can be useful to create images from unique points of view:

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e2v publishes a presentation of its new Emerald image sensor featuring 2.8um global shutter pixels. Few slides from the presentation:

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PRNewswire: Omnivision's OV13A10 and OV13A1Q is a pair of 13MP stacked-die sensors with second-generation PureCel Plus 1.0um pixel. The new sensors are intended for 2x optical zoom to front- and rear-facing cameras in mainstream smartphones. The OV13A10 is a telephoto sensor designed specifically for dual-camera applications with a module z-height of less than 6mm, and features zig-zag HDR (zHDR) and PDAF. A customized chief ray angle (CRA) enables the OV13A10 to be used as a tele-sensor in a 2X optical zoom camera configuration.


PRNewswire: OmniVision also announces the OV16B10, a 16MP stacked image sensor designed for the next generation of flagship smartphones. Built on the second-generation, 1.12um PureCel Plus-S pixel. It includes PDAF and zHDR too. zHDR uses a long and short exposure in a single frame. When compared with traditional frame-based HDR techniques, the zHDR is said to have increased DR with minimum ghosting artifacts.

The OV16B10 has a built-in feature that synchronizes the frames and supports context switching when it is used in dual-camera configurations, supporting image fusion while simplifying camera system architecture. Additionally, the OV16B10 features a gyro interface that reads and synchronizes the motion data from an external gyroscope to enable precise image stabilization for video and still capture.

The new sensors are currently available for sampling and are expected to enter volume production in Q4 2017.

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