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MediaTek announces the Imagiq ISP foir Helio high-end smartphone chipset solution.

As dual cameras are becoming standard on high-end smartphones, MediaTek Imagiq offer features enhancing the dual photography:

• Real-Time Large Aperture Depth-of-Field Effect – With the built-in 3D sensor, the ISP can capture depth mapping in real-time, and with a large aperture of greater than f/0.8, it can produce large aperture depth-of-field effects in real-time even for previews.
• Reality Depth of Field (DOF) – Users can map objects and backgrounds to multiple layers with a DOF feature. The smartphone can smartly position the object and background and apply creative effects to each layer in real time to produce photos or videos with DOF effects.
• Bayer and Mono Cameras – This multiple-sensor design can capture three times the light of a traditional single-bayer sensor, thus reducing image noise and increasing quality.
• Dual Camera Zoom – The ISP is equipped with a wide-angle lens and a telescope in its dual camera system. Imagiq combines these wide-angle and zoomed captured images into one image.

Other ISP features include:

• Hybrid Autofocus (PDAF and Laser Auto Focus) – Combining PDAF and Laser AF to realize a faster autofocus speed, which is also applicable in dimly lit environments.
• Pixel-Level Auto Focus – A focus speed is four times that of traditional autofocus, making it especially suitable for shooting fast-moving objects in real-time.
• New De-Mosaic and Sharpness Engine – With its large-scale texture recognition and implementation of adaptive color image abilities, Imagiq produces smoother and sharper images when taking photos in dimly lit environments.
• New Adaptive De-Noising Engine – Imagiq reduces image noise even in low-light environments
• Automatic Image Stabilization (AIS) – Imagiq can rapidly combine four consecutively captured images into one image, eliminating blur effects from camera shake.
• TrueBright Engine – With first-time RWWB sensor support, Imagiq powers twice the sensitivity to light of a traditional RGB sensor.
• EIS and Gyro – Using a hardware engine to predict motion, Imagiq eliminates a video’s camera shake and distortion.
• 1/32 Super-Slow Motion – In addition to supporting 720p video, Imagiq can shoot 1080p video at 480 fps in 1/32 super-slow motion playback, resulting in a 960 FPS video. Users are also able to edit videos using super-slow motion.
• Temporal Noise Reduction – Imagiq uses temporal noise reduction to locate and reduce pixel movement in videos, resulting in cleaner and more detailed video quality in both video previews and filming.
• 4K HDR Shooting – Support 4K HDR video shooting for the first time.

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Himax March 2016 investor presentation shows the company strengths in image sensors:

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Sony 3.45um global shutter pixel, said to be the smallest in the industry, is the base of two new sensors: IMX253LLR/LQR 1.1-inch 12.37MP and IMX255LLR/LQR 1-inch 8.95MP, available in both monochrome (LLR) and color (LQR) versions.


The company's Youtube video shows global shutter advantages:

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Blackmagic Design CEO, Grant Petty, posted an update on the global shutter problems in its newest cameras URSA Mini 4.6K and the Micro Cinema Camera, originally expected to ship in Oct. 2015, but delayed up to now:

"We have really appreciated everyone’s patience in waiting for these cameras and apologize for the delay. It took much longer than we had thought to get the cameras to where we needed them to be, but I am incredibly proud to bring 15 stop, Super 35 true digital film cameras to everyone...

However the big reason for the delay is the problems we were having with the global shutter feature in both of these cameras. The problems are different between the models and on the Micro Cinema Camera we have been seeing random bad pixels when in global shutter mode. On the URSA Mini 4.6K we have been seeing problems with sensor calibration when using global shutter.

Our engineers have been killing themselves working on this for months, but the performance is just not where it needs to be for us to feel comfortable shipping with global shutter, and so we have had to remove the global shutter feature from both these cameras to allow them to ship.

Obviously this is very upsetting for us, as we really wanted to produce high dynamic range cameras that also had a global shutter for an all in one design. The reality is that this is just one feature on cameras that are ready right now to shoot with and get incredible results. So we have made the decision to ship now."

The Micro Cinema Camera

Image sensor area magnified

Thanks to TG for the info!

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EETimes-Europe: Analog Devices Inc. has acquired Snap Sensor SA (Neuchatel, Switzerland), a maker of HDR and other specialized image sensors, for an undisclosed some of money.

Snap Sensor was founded in 2011 as a spin-off from an 8-year research program at Swiss research and technology organization CSEM. "SNAP Sensor’s cutting-edge optical technology and vision software and algorithm expertise allow us to continue unlocking new possibilities for our customers in a wide range of IoT applications such as building automation, building security, city management, transportation, and more,” said Michael Murray, GM of Industrial Sensing, Analog Devices. “This acquisition further enhances our sensing portfolio and ensures that we’re helping customers realize the best possible outcomes from IoT solutions.”

The SNAP Sensor team will remain in Switzerland to establish a new Analog Devices R&D center and continue its close collaboration with CSEM. The acquisition will enhance Analog Devices’ Blackfin Low Power Imaging Platform (BLiP). “Our team is very enthusiastic about joining Analog Devices,” said Pascal Dorster, CEO of SNAP Sensor. “This provides us access to the engineering, supply-chain, and commercialization resources needed to accelerate our growth and continue advancing our technology vision.”

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AutoSens Conference to be held on Sept. 20-22, 2016 in Brussels, Belgium, publishes an interview with Bibhrajit Halder, a Software Technical Specialist in the ADAS and Self-Driving team, Faraday Future automotive startup. The interview touches Caterpillar work on self-driving vision-based mining trucks:

Caterpillar self-driving track weights 390 tonnes (860,000 lb) fully loaded

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The 31st International Congress on High Speed Imaging and Photonics (ICHIP) will be held in Osaka, Japan on Nov. 7-10, 2016. So far, the list of 20 invited speakers has been announced, most of them showing previews of their work:

Liang Gao (University of Illinois, USA)
Compressed Ultrafast Photography: Catching photons on the fly by Compressed Ultrafast Photography


Keisuke GODA (University of Tokyo)
Sub-picosecond Imaging of “Propagating Phonons”


and many more on the Congress web site.

Thanks to RT for the link!

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MarketWired: Movidius and DJI announce that Movidius Myriad 2 vision processor is used in DJI’s flagship Phantom 4 aircraft, giving it the ability to sense and avoid obstacles in real time and hover in a fixed position without the need for a GPS signal.

The agreement is said to mark an industry first in making advanced visual guidance systems a standard feature for consumer drones.

“Movidius’ vision processor platform, Myriad 2, met the rigorous requirements we set for our flagship product, and we look forward to continued collaboration with Movidius as we push the boundaries in the drone market,” said Paul Pan, Senior Product Manager at DJI.

“DJI has set the direction for the future of the drone market and we are excited to incorporate Movidius’ low power artificial vision intelligence technology into DJI drones moving forward,” said Sean Mitchell, COO of Movidius. “Moving the technology from a demonstration to a highly reliable production worthy stage was a tremendous effort for both DJI and Movidius. The DJI Phantom 4 launch represents a milestone for the future of visually aware devices. We believe we are entering the golden age of embedded computer vision and our technology has placed Movidius at the forefront of this trend.”


Movidius publishes a Youtube video explaining Phantom 4 vision features:

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Caeleste presents "The future of high-end imaging" workshop to be held on Wednesday, April 6, 2016 from 13:30 – 17:40 at the Square meeting Center, Kunstberg – Mont des Arts in Brussels. This seminar will run in conjunction with the SPIE Photonics Europe Conference.

Caeleste brought together experts in the field and they provide their view on the trends in future high-end image sensors:

• Jan Bosiers, Teledyne-Dalsa: Wafer-scale CMOS imagers for medical X-ray imaging
• Benoit Dupont – Pyxalis: 20 bit image sensors using dual processor architectures
• Gert Finger, ESO: Large format, high speed sub-electron noise image sensors for ground-based astronomy
• Jochem Hermann, Adimec: CCD is history, CMOS is the future: ‘Still many challenges ahead!’
• Ajit Kumar Kalgi, Caeleste: High Dynamic Range, shot noise limited Image sensors with global shutter.
• Nick Nelms, ESA-ESTEC: High-performance image sensors in space – the shape of things to come.
• Karsten Sengebusch, Eureca: Prediction of the performance and image quality of CMOS image sensors.

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EETimes-Europe publishes an interview with Jess Lee, Invisage CEO. Few quotes:

"We have not said to much about the material structure of QuantumFilm. There are concerns over cadmium in quantum dots so the first thing to say is there is no cadmium. What we have said is that it is a metal-chalcogenide material, similar to a II-VI material surrounded by ligands in a matrix.

The dots are of a diameter of between about 3-micron and 5-micron and it is these dimensions that affect the electron band structure and govern the sensitivity to light.

We are limited by the state of silicon I/O and analog-to-digital converters. As that rises we can go at hundreds, even thousands of frames per second. There is no difference between us and comparable CMOS image sensors.

We see QuantumFilm as a platform used by us as the first and second customer. To have third and fourth customers is better for us. We are prepared to work with partners to enable them, with QuantumFilm. We wouldn't license the technology out but there are a number of other ways to enable partners.

...we are on a mature silicon platform – 110nm. It's a very different capital investment process there. We have our own fab in Taiwan but it is only focused on a couple of processes – a spin-on process to add the film and the definition of the pixels."

Invisage white paper linked on the last page of the article discusses NIR imaging applications:

SparkP2 product overview

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CTimes quotes Photonics Technology & Industry Development Association (PIDA) saying that "in 2014 the total global CMOS sensor shipments amounted to 4.65 billion units. Chinese manufacturer Galaxycore was the top company, accounting for 21% of the shipments; whereas Japan’s Sony and the United States’ Omnivision made the second highest number of shipments at 19%. Meanwhile, low pixel VGA products showed the most rapid growth during the past few years.

Chinese cell phone manufacturers are winning over CMOS sensors that were manufactured by Sony, which has resulted in Sony’s proposed early expansion of investment."

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Drones quickly become a sizable camera market. The latest DJI Phantom 4 drone has 5 cameras (1 for remote viewing and recording plus 4 for vision processing: follow me, depth , object recognition and tracking, visual navigation). DJI is the world's largest drone manufacturer, based in Shenzhen, China.



Thanks to FS for the info!

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Albert Theuwissen has updated his PDAF pixel characterization report with additional measurements focused on :

• the influence of the exposure time on the PDAF pixel signals and the possibility to extract useful focusing information from it,
• angular light dependency of the PDAF pixels.

The Harvest Imaging site look is also updated and is much nicer now.

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EE Journal publishes ON Semi Michael DeLuca Youtube interview on EMCCD low light imaging for surveillance:

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Phonearena quotes Finnish-language Taskumuro site making an unscientific comparison of Samsung Galaxy S7 equipped with Sony IMX260 and Samsung S5K2L1 dual-pixel AF sensors. One can judge the differences on real-life subjects with HDR mode off (many more pictures on the original site):

Sony sensor, click & download for full resolution

Samsung sensor, click & download for full resolution

More PhoneArena thoughts on the comparison is here.

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PRWeb: MEMS Drive and OPPO come up with a joint press release on their MEMS-based SmartSensor, the first image sensor-based image stabilizer for smartphones, also said to be the industry’s first sub-pixel-level optical image stabilizer.

While VCM smartphone cameras are limited to shake compensation on just two axes of movement, the new MEMS-based approach compensates for motion on three axes. This additional degree of mobility is said to vastly outperform traditional OIS technologies for smartphones, because it is faster – compensating for vibrations in 15 ms compared to 50 ms for lens-based technologies – and more accurate, and it allows for significantly lower power consumption.

MEMS Drive was founded to develop and advance the field of MEMS OIS technology for smartphone cameras. “The collaboration with OPPO has been very successful. The fact that OPPO is taking such an active role in co-developing this technology with MEMS Drive is accelerating our roadmap, and will ultimately come to benefit smartphone users sooner,” said Colin Kwan, CEO and founder of MEMS Drive.

“OPPO recognized that the MEMS Drive OIS actuator could vastly improve the end users’ camera experience. We therefore decided to invest in MEMS Drive and to co-develop the SmartSensor image stabilizer, and bring yet another significant advance in smartphone technology to market,” said King Liu, VP of Product Development at OPPO.

The advantages of MEMS Drive OIS are:

• 3 Axis stabilization: pitch, yaw and roll
• Fast (MEMS advantage)
• Low power consumption
• High precision
• Built-in 2 Axis accelerometer
• Compatible with any existing AF, shutter and Zoom actuators
• 3D capture
• Super resolution

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I missed this news from about a month ago, when Sharp presented the quarterly results for its fiscal Q3, ended on Dec. 31, 2015. Its imaging products sales rise nicely to all times high:

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New Imaging Technologies introduces the NSC1401, an analog WDR QVGA InGaAs sensor series. The sensor uses a new generation of ROIC with a 320x256 pixels at 25um pitch coupled to an InGaAs retina that operates in WDR mode and global shutter. The spectral response ranges from 900nm to 1700nm. Its AFE provides ultra fast response time down to 200ns for applications such as active imaging. The sensor operates both in linear integration mode and in log response at speeds up to 300fps at full resolution.


One of NIT customers postes a WDR video shot with its older NSC1003 GS sensor:

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BusinessWire: Samsung announces its 12MP, 1.4um dual pixel sensor for smartphones, already in mass production. The dual pixel is said to enable rapid AF even in low light situations.

“With 12 million pixels working as a phase detection auto-focus (PDAF) agent, the new image sensor brings professional auto-focusing performance to a mobile device,” said Ben K. Hur, VP Marketing, System LSI Business at Samsung. “Consumers will be able to capture their daily events and precious moments instantly on a smartphone as the moments unfold, regardless of lighting conditions.”

The new image sensor employs two PDs located on the left and right halves of a pixel, while a conventional PDAF-equipped sensor dedicates less than 5% of its pixels, with one photodiode each that converts light particles into measurable photocurrent for phase detection. As each and every pixel of the Dual Pixel image sensor is capable of detecting phase differences of perceived light, significantly faster auto-focus has become possible, especially for moving objects even in poor lighting conditions.

The image sensor has also adopted Samsung’s ISOCELL technology, which isolates the photodiodes in each pixel with a physical wall to further reduce color cross talk, maximizing the image sensor’s performance.

The new image sensor is built with chip-stacking technology: a 65nm sensor on top of 28nm logic chip.


Meanwhile, GSMArena found an unscientific Youtube comparison of speeds of Galaxy S7 dual pixel AF and Canon EOS 70D DSLR dual pixel AF:

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Chipworks publishes an update on Sony IMX260 dual pixel AF sensor, found in Samsung Galaxy S7:

"Our lab staff have completed the initial cross-sectioning work for our IMX260 project and we have a substantial update to share: the Sony IMX260 is, in fact, a stacked chip CMOS image sensor! As mentioned, we had expected to find through silicon vias (TSVs) consistent with Sony’s Exmor RS technology platform. Our early teardown results revealed what appeared to be a conventional Sony non-stacked back-illuminated (Exmor R) chip. After going deeper inside, we see that Sony is leading the digital imaging sector into an era of hybrid bonding. It’s not currently known if Sony considers this an extension of its Exmor RS platform, or if the IMX260 marks the first of a new (as of now unannounced) family of back-illuminated image sensors. For now we consider the IMX260 to be a 3rd generation Exmor RS chip.

Our cross-section reveals a 5 metal (Cu) CMOS image sensor (CIS) die and a 7 metal (6 Cu + 1 Al) image signal processor (ISP) die. The Cu-Cu vias are 3.0 µm wide and have a 14 µm pitch in the peripheral regions. In the active pixel array they are also 3.0 µm wide, but have a pitch of 6.0 µm. Note that in the images we’ve included we do see connections from the Cu-Cu via pads to both CIS and ISP landing pads."

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DALSA publishes an article "Image Sensor Basics: Changes in the marketplace mean benefits for customers" in Quality Magazine. Few quotes:

"Major industry players—such as ON Semiconductor, CMOSIS, e2v, and Sony — have grown even larger as they’ve acquired smaller challengers, yet they continue to compete to strengthen their hold on existing markets and their competitive position with new customers as the demand for devices that rely on image sensors expands.

For end customers, industry consolidation means the promise of innovation leading to new, higher-quality sensors that deliver greater features and functionality, and are available at a lower cost.

The image sensor industry holds a vast repository of intellectual property and consolidation among former competitors will result in the integration of this intellectual property and the sharing of best practices, which in turn, should facilitate improved image sensor quality. In fact, CMOS image sensor quality has already improved in recent years.

The cost of image sensors and the price of the cameras or other products in which they’re incorporated will continue to decrease as the remaining competitors jockey for expanded market share, and consumers will be the beneficiaries."

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Boston University Associate Professor Vivek Goyal lecture "First-Photon Imaging and Other Imaging with Few Photons" is published on Vimeo:

Abstract:
"LIDAR systems use single-photon detectors to enable long-range reflectivity and depth imaging. By exploiting an inhomogeneous Poisson process observation model and the typical structure of natural scenes, first-photon imaging demonstrates the possibility of accurate LIDAR with only 1 detected photon per pixel, where half of the detections are due to (uninformative) ambient light. I will explain the simple ideas behind first-photon imaging. Then I will present related subsequent works that enable the use of detector arrays and improve robustness to ambient light."

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EETimes publishes a TI article on ADAS front looking camera resolution and frame rate trade-offs:

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Many have been wondering what Junichi Nakamura's startup Brillnics is working on, especially after TSMC pixel group head S.G. Wuu has joined them. Two PCT patent applications might shed some light on it:

WO2016009942: SOLID STATE IMAGING DEVICE, METHOD FOR PRODUCING SOLID STATE IMAGING DEVICE, AND ELECTRONIC APPARATUS by TAKAYANAGI, Isao; TANAKA, Shunsuke; MORI, Kazuya; ARIYOSHI, Katsuhiko; MATSUO, Shinichiro.

WO2016009943: SOLID-STATE IMAGING DEVICE, METHOD FOR PRODUCING SOLID-STATE IMAGING DEVICE, AND ELECTRONIC APPARATUS by AKAYANAGI, Isao; TANAKA, Shunsuke; MORI, Kazuya; ARIYOSHI, Katsuhiko; MATSUO, Shinichiro.

While the detailed description is in Japanese, just from the abstract and figures, it appears to be a stacked sensor built on CMOS pixel with CCD-like charge transfer and storage:

"This solid-state imaging device 100 has: a light sensitive unit that includes pixel units 211, which are disposed in a matrix, and charge forwarding units 212 for forwarding, by the column, the signal charge of the pixel units; a plurality of charge accumulation units 220 that accumulate the signal charges forwarded by the plurality of charge forwarding units of the light sensitive unit; a relay unit 240 that relays the forwarding of the signal charges forwarded by the plurality of charge accumulation units to each charge accumulation unit; an output unit 230 that outputs the signal charges of the plurality of charge accumulation units as electric signals; a first substrate 110 at which the light sensitive unit 210 is formed; and a second substrate 120 at which the charge accumulation unit 220 and output unit 230 are formed. The first substrate and second substrate are laminated together, and the relay unit 240 electrically couples the charge forwarding unit of the first substrate to the charge accumulation unit of the second substrate by means of a connection section traversing the substrates outside the light sensitive region of the light sensitive unit."


The most interesting part is a charge transfer between the stacked dies through TSV:

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CNET publishes a video demoing the latest Corephotonics camera modules:

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Chipworks reverse engineering of Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge smartphone confirms the rumors that its 12MP, 1.4um dual pixel AF sensor is Sony IMX260:

"Our lab staff have removed the imaging chip from the 12 MP camera module and have found a Sony back-illuminated (Exmor R) CMOS image sensor. We were expecting to find TSV arrays around the periphery of the active pixel array, corresponding to Sony’s stacked chip (Exmor RS) technology platform. Sony hasn’t publicly announced the IMX260, but based on what we’ve been reading, we assume that is the part number. It’s a bit of a surprise that the IMX260 isn’t an Exmor RS sensor, as we’ve been documenting a lot of Sony design wins based on its 1st and 2nd generation Exmor RS technology. It seems the full chip PDAF functionality, which requires dual readout from each pixel, was implemented with a multi-chip solution rather than a stacked (CIS + ISP) solution.

The Sony IMX260 die size, as measured from the die seals, is 6.69 mm x 5.55 mm (37.1 mm2). There are no conventional die identification markings in use on the die, consistent with back-illuminated (stacked/non-stacked) Sony CIS chips. We confirmed a pixel pitch of 1.4 µm and a Bayer-patterned color filter array."

X-Ray image

The 5MP front camera is based on 1.34um BSI pixel Samsung S5K4E6XP sensor:


Cnet's Youtube video shows Samsung Galaxy S7 camera presentation at MWC 2016:

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Chipworks says that scanning microwave impedance microscopy (sMIM), a new scanning probe microscopy (SPM) technique, might replace traditional scanning capacitance microscopy (SCM). Like SCM, the new sMIM technique reveals information on the implanted dopant structures of a semiconductor device.

sMIM Hardware Simplified Schematic Diagram

Chipworks publishes cross-sectional and plan-view images of the pixels of the OmniVision OV2D7AG, which is a 175 kilo-pixel, FSI global shutter, infrared CMOS sensor from the Amazon Fire Phone:

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PRNewswire: Deep Optics has raised $4M in a Series A financing round to fund the development of its image sensor-equipped glasses. The round includes strategic investor Essilor, the world leader in ophthalmic optics, Taiwan-based Atomics 14 Ventures and several private investors.

"The human eye has a natural focusing ability that degrades with age. Current multifocal glasses compensate for this degradation, but they cannot offer adaptable correction power management. The dynamic solution we're developing is actually similar to the human focusing mechanism, and so in addition to its superior lens function, should be even easier to get used to with minimal, if any, adjustment required," explained Yariv Haddad, co-founder and CEO of Deep Optics.

Deep Optics is also exploring additional applications for its adaptive electronic lens technology. Two notable applications are AR and VR systems, which are likely to benefit from the addition of adaptive optics to future models. According to Haddad, Deep Optics has already started discussions with companies in this field.



PRNewswire, GlobeNewsWire: Meanwhile, the stealth AR startup Magic Leap raises $793.5M in what might be the largest C round in Internet history. The new funding will give Magic Leap a post-money value of $4.5 billion. (Wired)

"Here at Magic Leap we are creating a new world where digital and physical realities seamlessly blend together to enable amazing new experiences. This investment will accelerate bringing our new Mixed Reality Lightfield™ experience to everyone," said Rony Abovitz, Founder, President, and CEO of Magic Leap, Inc. "We are excited to welcome Alibaba as a strategic partner to help introduce Magic Leap's breakthrough products to the over 400 million people on Alibaba's platforms."

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