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Samsung Semi updated its last year's mobile products presentation talking about its recent CIS innovations and market shares:

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Sharp updates its lineup of distance measuring sensors, now covering a range from 1.5cm to 5.5m:

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Sony publishes a 2016 edition of its Quality and Reliability Handbook. Its section 5.1 talks about precautions when dealing with image sensors:

• Do not expose to ultraviolet rays, sunlight or other strong light for long periods. The transmittance and color characteristics of the on-chip lens and color filter may be affected.
• Avoid storing or using products at a high temperature or high humidity, as this may adversely affect the transmittance or color characteristics.
• The imaging characteristics may be affected by noise or other factors when strong electromagnetic waves or magnetic fields are approached during operation. Special care should be taken for CMOS image sensors as these are easily affected.
• Note that the image of CMOS image sensors may be affected by light leaking to the optical black when using an infrared cut filter that has transmittance in the near infrared range while shooting subjects with high luminance.
• Sony image sensor specifications do not assume use in environments with above-ordinary radiation levels.
• White pixels occur spontaneously in image sensors over time and due to cosmic radiation. White pixels that occur should be compensated using a white pixel compensation circuit.

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Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated a new approach to modifying the light absorption and stretchability of atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) materials by surface topographic engineering using only mechanical strain.

"We achieved more than an order-of-magnitude enhancement of the optical extinction via the buckled 3D structure, which led to an approximately 400% enhancement in photoresponsivity,” stated Pilgyu Kang, a postdoctoral research associate and first author of the paper, “Crumpled Graphene Photodetector with Enhanced, Strain-tunable and Wavelength-selective Photoresponsivity,” appearing in the journal, Advanced Materials. “The new strain-tunable photoresponsivity resulted in a 100% modulation in photoresponsivity with a 200% applied strain. By integrating colloidal photonic crystal—a strain-tunable optomechanical filter—with the stretchable graphene photodetector, we also demonstrated a unique strain-tunable wavelength selectivity.”

“This work demonstrates a robust approach for stretchable and flexible graphene photodetector devices,” SungWoo Nam, an assistant professor of mechanical science and engineering added. “We are the first to report a stretchable photodetector with stretching capability to 200% of its original length and no limit on detection wavelength. Furthermore, our approach to enhancing photoabsorption by crumpled structures can be applied not only to graphene, but also to other emerging 2D materials.”

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Statista quotes Goldman Sachs research predicting the industry reaching a value of $80 billion a year ($35 billion software and $45 billion hardware) by 2025, roughly the size of the desktop PC market today. The potential of AR/VR tech is extremely diverse:


Update: Re\code: AR startup Magic Leap publishes a patent on how AR will change a coffee drinking experience in the future.

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Imaging Resource, DPReview: Lytro exits consumer light-field camera business, apparently due to the lack of the consumer interest. The company CEO Jason Rosenthal says in his blog post "While consumer Light Field cameras offered a number of true technological breakthroughs such as interactive 3D pictures, radical lens specs, and the ability to focus a picture after the fact we had a number of disadvantages as well including 4X larger file sizes and lower resolution in comparison to other similarly priced cameras. The cold hard fact was that we were competing in an established industry where the product requirements had been firmly cemented in the minds of consumers by much larger more established companies. This issue was compounded by the fact that the consumer camera market was declining by almost 35% per year driven by the surge in smartphone photography and changing consumer tastes."

The company's Vimeo video talks about its new focus on Immerge VR cinema production platform:

Lytro Immerge from Lytro on Vimeo.

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ON Semi presents AR0237, a 1/2.7-Inch 2.1MP 1080p60 sensor for security and surveillance applications. The sensor uses DR-Pix technology with Dual Conversion Gain pixel and supports line interleaved T1/T2 readout with HDR processing in ISP chip, among other features:


PRNewswire: OmniVision announces OV9755 CameraChip HD image sensor for mainstream security, smart home, and IP cameras. The power-efficient sensor is based on 3.75um OmniPixel3-HS pixel. The 3.75um pixel is said to enable best-in-class low-light performance at 43Ke-/lux-sec and less than 0.2 lux SNR1 (the luminance value for a signal to noise ratio of 1:1). The OV9755 is currently in volume production.

"According to a recent industry report, the global smart camera market for security and surveillance applications is expected to grow from $1.93 billion today to $3.06 billion by 2020, with CMOS sensor-based cameras leading the growth," said Chris Yiu, senior marketing manager at OmniVision.

Other Omnivision announcements are design wins in Tamron camera module with OIS for security and action cameras, featuring 1/3-inch 4MP OV4689, and HiSilicon IP camera reference design with 1/3-inch 1080p30 OV2718.

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Globes: Israeli startup Unispectral closed a $7.5M Series A funding round led by Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), Robert Bosch Venture Capital (RBVC), Samsung Catalyst Fund and The Tel Aviv University Technology Innovation Momentum Fund. This brings the money raised by the company to date to $8M.

The company is developing the next generation of digital cameras which will use hyper-spectral sensors for enhanced seeing and sensing capabilities.

The company says it aims to transform the four-decade standard of color sensing mechanisms in compact cameras. Its imaging technology is said to provide an unprecedented low light sensitivity and rich color, complemented by better resolution. Unispectral's hyper-spectral sensor will be applicable to a wide range of use cases such as wearables, digital health and medical imaging, Internet of Things, industrial and agriculture applications, and beyond. This breakthrough technology, backed by multiple patents, is said to be able to distinguish material properties in solids, liquids and gases.

The company's PCT patent application WO2014207742 "A SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR COLOR IMAGE ACQUISITION" by David MENDLOVIC and Ariel RAZ reveals its technology:

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The newly announced Huawei P9 flagship smartphone features a dual camera based on Sony 12MP IMX286 sensors with 1.25um pixel pitch:

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BusinessWire: Ambarella introduces the S5 SoC for 4K and multi-imager IP camera designs. The S5 offers 4K multi-exposure HDR fusion, 360° de-warp and ultra-low light processing. Maximum performance is 4Kp120 or 8Kp30 of H.264/AVC and 4Kp60 frames of H.265/HEVC, while supporting multi-streaming, rate control and transcoding functions. The S5 supports the high-quality Main10 HEVC Profile (10-bit H.265) and Ambarella’s SmartHEVC technology to reduce 4Kp30 video bitrates to between 512 Kbps and 4 Mbps. The S5 image sensor interface and its advanced 1-Gigapixel/s ISP can be configured as up to four independent sensor inputs to allow high resolution multi-imager cameras.

“The S5 will play a critical role in the industry’s shift to 4K and H.265," said Fermi Wang, President and CEO of Ambarella. "With it, our partners gain a leading-edge image processor that delivers low power consumption, superior image quality, smart H.265 compression and a powerful quad-core CPU.”

Ambarella low-power architecture combined with 14nm FinFET process enables 4Kp30 encoding, including DDR, at less than 1.4 Watts

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PRNewswire: OmniVision announces the OV4686 and OV9756, two 1/3-inch RGB-Ir sensors that support dual band color filters instead of traditional mechanical rotary IR filters. Leveraging an innovative color array pattern, the OV4686 and OV9756 can capture high quality infrared images and video, even from long ranges, and bring superior color aliasing performance compared to previous generation offerings.

"Maintaining high quality images and color accuracy as lighting conditions change throughout the day is an essential capability for image sensors geared towards the security marketplace," said Chris Yiu, senior marketing manager at OmniVision. "By utilizing our second-generation RGB-Ir dual color band filter, the OV4686 and OV9756 sensors deliver excellent color performance and infrared imaging in a compact form factor well-suited for commercial and consumer applications such as smart doorbells and other IoT camera systems."

Built on a 2um OmniBSI-2 pixel, the OV4686 captures 1080p120 and 720p180 video. The OV9756 is based on 3.75um OmniPixel3-HS pixel and delivers 720p60 video. It also features low-power mode with system wake-up trigger functionality.

The OV4686 and OV9756 sensors are currently available for sampling and are expected to enter volume production in Q2 2016.

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BusinessWire: IHS iPhone SE teardown report estimates both front and rear camera module cost $13.30, out of $156.20 total BOM, or about 8.5% - about the same proportion as iPhone 4s cameras:

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Chipworks reverse engineering reveals that Apple iPhone SE FaceTime front-facing camera uses Omnivision 1.2MP sensor with pixel pitch of 1.75 µm. The die, which features OV2E0BNN die markings, has a size of 4.3 mm x 4.1 mm (17.6 mm2):


The rear camera contains a Sony stacked (Exmor RS) sensor with a 6.02 mm x 4.83 mm (29.1 mm2) die size. The pixel pitch is 1.22 µm, as was used for the iPhone 6s/6s Plus. The decapsulated die photos from the SE and 6s Plus rear image sensors appear to be the same chip:

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Sony announces that is has developed the world's first ghost catching device - Proton Pack equipped with a state-of-the-art, miniaturized superconducting synchrotron, which accelerates injected protons from a hydrogen plasma cell to capture ectoplasmic matter. The Proton Pack integrates the super slow motion video camera, allowing users to capture the matter in 960 fps rate and accurately record the movement of its target.

The company's official Youtube video explains the new product functionality:

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DNews posts a nice educational video talking about some people seeing life in 4 base colors, rather than in usual 3. Researchers claim that "Some 12% of women are carriers of the mild, X-linked forms of color vision deficiencies called “anomalous trichromacy.” Owing to random X chromosome inactivation, their retinae must contain four classes of cone rather than the normal three."

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PRWeb: Pinnacle Imaging Systems announces its Ultra HDR IP cores and HDR video capture technology, proven in its previous still-image software implementation. Ultra HDR provides adaptive tone mapping of HDR scenes up to 19 EV or 115 dB and can capture 120 fps (merging four exposures per frame), and stream full 1080 HDMI tone mapped video for display at up to 60 fps in real time.

“Even the most modern image sensors are limited in the dynamic range which they can capture,” said Alfred Zee, President & CEO of Pinnacle Imaging Systems. “We believe that cameras should be able to provide the same contrast range that we naturally see with our own eyes, so we based our technology on the human vision model. It’s this unique approach that allows our Ultra HDR technology to deliver such color-accurate, high contrast video quality.”

Pinnacle Ultra HDR technology addresses many of the complexities involved in HDR video capture including:

• Automatic Ghost Removal & Halo Reduction – Compensates for movement between HDR exposures, from minimal camera motion to moving objects between frames
• Adaptive Local Tone Mapping – Automatically optimizes the tone mapping parameters based on the shadow and highlight areas of each individual video frame
• Automatic White Balance Controls – Automatically calculates proper white balance settings for any scene or lighting condition
• Automatic Exposure Controls – Real time calculation and adjustment of the sensor’s exposure settings based on an automatic or manually selected region of interest to allow accurate exposure throughout a scene
• Shadow Exposure Bias Option – Ability to bias tone mapping with an additional Shadow Tracking option during the Auto Exposure mode for optimal shadow detail and data preservation, a key requirement for surveillance applications

With initial FPGA implementation completed, Pinnacle Imaging IP blocks can now be ported to ASIC, DSP+SoCs or ISPs. “We are currently seeing growing demand for HDR capabilities embedded into video cameras and production equipment,” said Ron Tussy, Director of Business Development for Pinnacle Imaging Systems. “Our proprietary embedded HDR tone mapping is a critical underlying technology necessary to improve data capture for technologies used in range finding and recognition in automotive, security and surveillance or any other field demanding video to be captured across very bright and very dark areas.”


FPGA-based Ultra HDR Dev. Platform resource requirements:

Existing FPGA Based Platform (full video path)

• 40k slices, 308 DSP blocks
• 600k byte internal RAM (155 36k bit BRAM, 32 18k bit BRAM)
• 28G bit external DDR3 BW, memory for frame buffers
• Currently running at 148.5MHz clock rate
• Can be ported to low cost Altera (Cyclone) or Xilinx (Artix)

Merge Block Details

• Single input data stream, one frame/exposure at a time.
• IP size is 480k gates coupled with 59k bytes of RAM.
• Requires 19G bit/s bandwidth on an external DDR port for frame buffering.

Tone Mapping Block Details

• IP size is 327k gates coupled with 300k bytes of RAM.
• Requires 9.5G bit/s bandwidth on an external DDR port for frame buffering.

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ResearchInChina's "Global and China Vision ADAS Industry Report, 2015-2020" report forecasts that ADAS systems will adapt stereo cameras and abandon mono ones:

"Camera-based vision ADAS systems can be divided into several categories of applications: 1) Lane Detection, i.e., LDW/LKA/LCA (Lane Centering Assist) to prevent the car from deviating in the working state of either ACC or TJA (Traffic Jam Assist); 2) Obstacles Detection and Recognition, i.e., FCW (Forward Collision Warning)/AEB (Autonomous Emergency Braking); 3) Surroundings Display, i.e., Parking Assist, including Rear View and 360°Surround View. 4) BSD (Blind Spot Detection); 5) HBA (High Beam Assist) and Night Vision.

In application field, warning-only ADASs will gradually exit market, while the ADASs with actuator represent the mainstream in the future. For example, it is hard for drivers to take prompt countermeasures, as the warning time of FCW is no more than 3 seconds. Moreover, AEB (Autonomous Emergency Braking) may become the most important ADAS application. AEB will be a mandatory safety function across the world during 2021-2025.

Future orientation of development will be stereo camera rather than mono camera, especially in AEB field. As AEB concerns human life, there must be as much performance redundancy as possible, thus ensuring the safety of drivers to the utmost extent. Stereo camera has an overwhelming advantage over mono camera in the aspect of pedestrians recognition. However, the majority of companies (OEMs & Tier 1 suppliers) still adopt mono camera, as AEB is largely an optional component rather than a standard one, and the costs of stereo camera are much higher, resulting in higher price and low popularity.

Pedestrians Recognition will be a must of next-generation AEB, meaning that stereo camera has to be employed. Mercedes-Benz, Subrau, Jaguar, and Suzuki have adopted stereo camera from the very beginning, while VW, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan all employ stereo camera in their experimental models. As to Tier 1, Hitachi Automotive System has used stereo camera at the very start, while Continental, Bosch, Denso, and Fujitsu Ten see stereo camera as the priority of development. These companies are iconic ones in automobile industry and their moves represent the direction of automobile industry as a whole.

Global automotive camera module shipments approximated 50.3 million pieces in 2015 and are expected to reach 62.1 million pieces in 2016, 141 million pieces in 2020, and 246 million pieces in 2025. There are three cameras on each light vehicle on average, respectively for LKA, AEB, and Parking. Unlike mobile phone camera modules, automotive camera modules are highly demanding on reliability and range of operating temperature. Major vendors are Panasonic, Sony, Valeo, Fujitsu Ten, MCNEX, Magna, Gentex, Continental, and Hitachi. Panasonic ranks first globally in terms of market share and is far ahead of the second place.

Global automotive vision system market size was worth about USD3.1 billion in 2015 and is expected to hit USD6.1 billion in 2020. Magna, TRW (ZF), Hitachi Automotive System, and Continental are in the first camp, with Magna being the world’s largest, and Autoliv, Valeo, Denso, Fujitsu-ten, and Bosch are in the second camp. As the demand from carmakers varies greatly, the market concentration has been lower and this will continue for a considerable time."

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Hamamatsu publishes a camera simulator showing an expected camera output for various image sensor and camera setups. Unfortunately, many image sensor imperfections are omitted, such as all color effects, hot and bad pixels, lens shading, RTN, PRNU, etc. Still a nice simulator, though:

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Sony low cost STARVIS sensor, IMX323, for security and surveillance applications is reportedly offered for less than $3 in volume in China. The 1080p30 1/2.9-inch sensor is based on 2.8um pixels. A complete datasheet of the new sensor can be downloaded here.

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P&S Market Research publishes "Global Industry Insight: BSI CMOS Image Sensor Market Size, Share, Development, Growth and Demand Forecast to 2020." Few insights from the report:

"North America leads the backside illumination (BSI), complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor market, due to several design and technological improvements in this technology... The Asia-Pacific BSI CMOS image sensor market is expected to grow at the highest rate, in the coming years, due to which, it is expected to become the largest market, in the coming years. One of the key reasons for high growth of Asia Pacific in this market is its swift transition from analog to digital systems...

BSI CMOS image sensors eliminate the bulk substrate in the devices to decrease diffusion component of dark current and electrical crosstalk. BSI CMOS image sensors have higher quantum efficiency, which in turn enhances the production of output images with similar signal to noise ratio (SNR). However BSI CMOS image sensors are mechanically weaker, due to wafer thinning, which results in more chances of breakage for a large BSI CMOS image sensor."

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EETimes publishes an article "What Do InVisage & InvenSense Have in Common?" by Peter Clarke, comparing Invisage and Invensense business models. While Invensense is successful at MEMS inertial sensors market, licensing its process to others does not bring much income for the company. So, the article questions whether this approach can work for Invisage.

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Seville University, Spain publishes "On Chip CMOS Vision Systems for High-Speed Applications" PhD Thesis by Francisco Jose Jimenez Garrido, dated by Oct. 2015 and devoted to smart sensors with fast in-pixel processing:

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Brookman Technology delivers engineering samples of 33MP, 120fps BT3300N for 8K Super Hi-Vision broadcast, which was co-developed with NHK and Prof. Kawahito's Group of Shizuoka University. BT3300N is said to be the only image sensor (as of January 2016) that meets the full specifications of the Super Hi-Vision (8K, 120fps) and its optical format is Super 35mm. The new sensor is based on 3.2um pixels and features 14b 2-stage ADC.

8K Super Hi-Vision is set to begin test broadcasting in 2016 and roll out full broadcasting by 2018.

Brookman BT3300N

MarketWired: Silvaco announces that Brookman has adopted Silvaco's power integrity tool suite InVar Power-IR-Thermal for the design and development of its CMOS sensor products. InVar Power analyzes dynamic power consumption; InVar IR analyzes voltage drops in power sources and signal networks; and InVar Thermal performs thermal analysis at the full chip level. Concurrent observations of power, IR and thermal make it possible to perform real-time analysis, considering the effect of heat generation.

Brookman Technology's President, Satoshi Aoyama, stated, "8K standard demands the challenging specs to sensors, which are 33Mega-pixel resolution, 120 frames/second speed and 12-bit image gradation. This large and high-speed sensor is facing the issue of voltage drops so critically that the analysis by InVar IR is extremely helpful. In addition, as for the problem regarding the degradation of image due to intra-chip heat generation, we expect that InVar Thermal contributes effectively to the shortening of development TAT, as well as the improvement of design quality."

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BusinessWire: Panasonic develops a thermal sensation estimation method using its infrared array sensor Grid-EYE. The thermal sensation estimation method recognizes the human sensations of hot and cold by calculating heat loss based on the difference between human surface temperature and ambient temperature. The thermal sensing solutions Panasonic provides are a super-resolution algorithm using Grid-EYE, an infrared array sensor, to measure the temperature distribution in detail and detect objects, thereby achieving air conditioning suitable for sensed temperature by combining the obtained data and thermal sensation estimation method.


The 2014 company video explains Grid-Eye imager features:

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VLSI Circuit and Technology Symposia to be held on June 13-17, 2016 in Honolulu, HI, publishes accepted paper list, with quite a few image sensor papers:

• A 220pJ/Pixel/Frame CMOS Image Sensor with Partial Settling Readout Architecture, Ji, Stanford University
• An 8.3M‐pixel 480fps Global‐Shutter CMOS Image Sensor with Gain‐Adaptive Column ADCs and 2‐on‐1 Stacked Device Structure, Oike, Sony
• A Dead‐time Free Global Shutter CMOS Image Sensor with in‐pixel LOFIC and ADC using Pixel‐wise Direct Connections, Sugo, Tohoku Univ.
• White Spots Reduction by Ultimate Proximity Metal Gettering at Carbon Complexes Formed underneath Contact Area in CMOS Image Sensors, Yamaguchi, Renesas Electronics Corporation
• Enabling monolithic 3D image sensor using large-area monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide and logic/memory hybrid 3D+IC, Yang, National Nano Device Laboratories
• Back‐illuminated voltage‐domain global shutter CMOS image sensor with 3.75µm pixels and dual in‐pixel storage nodes, Stark, University of Edinburgh, UK
• Broadband THz Spectroscopic Imaging based on Fully Integrated 4×2 Digital‐to‐Impulse Radiating Array with Full‐Spectrum of 0.03‐1.03THz in Silicon, Assefzadeh, Rice University
• Novel Pixel Structure with Stacked Deep Photodiode to Achieve High NIR Sensitivity and High MTF, Takahashi Hiroki, TowerJazz

Also, the Circuit Symposium plenary session features Sony talk:

“Accelerating the Sensing World through Imaging Evolution”, Tetsuo Nomoto, VP and SGM, SONY
The evolution of CMOS Image Sensors (CIS) and the future prospect of a “sensing” world utilizing advanced imaging technologies promise to improve our quality of life by sensing anything, anywhere, anytime. Charge Coupled Device image sensors replaced video camera tubes, allowing the introduction of compact video cameras as consumer products. CIS now dominates the market for digital still cameras created by its predecessor and, with the advent of column-parallel ADCs and back-illuminated technologies, outperforms them. CIS’s achieve better signal to noise ratio, lower power consumption, and higher frame rate. Stacked CIS’s continue to enhance functionality and user experience in mobile devices, a market that currently comprises over one billion new image sensors per year. CIS imaging technologies promise to accelerate the progress of sensing world by continuously improving image quality, extending detectable wavelengths, and further improving depth resolution and temporal resolution.

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Jörg Kunze from Basler AG kindly allowed me to publish few slides from his presentation at the London Image Sensors 2016 conference about his novel Debayering algorithm called PGI.

His implementation is a hardware-efficient single-step 5x5 pixel algorithm, which performs a zipper-free high-quality Bayer-pattern interpolation up to the theoretical frequency limit, color-anti-aliasing, sharpness enhancement and noise reduction together. The pictures look very convincing. Basler has currently a single-lane FPGA implementation with a throughput of 140 MPix/s using 880 Cyclone V logic cells and a quad lane implementation with a throughput of 400 MPix/s using 2600 logic cells. Jörg says, Basler is interested in licensing, cross-licensing or technology exchange.

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WSJ: Honda is releasing automated highway driving features on its entry-level vehicle Civic LX sedan. With price tag of $20,440 it makes it accessible to significantly more buyers, including younger ones.

As auto makers offer the components needed to power these functions in option packages as low as $1,800, they are being snapped up at a far higher rate than electrified vehicles.



Via Videantis news.

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