SWIR Sensor Startup Trieye Raises $74M, Total $96M in 4 Years

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EETimes-Europe, i-Micronews, PRNewsWire: Israeli CMOS-based SWIR sensor sturtup Trieye raises $74M in a new financing round rringing its total raised capital to $96M in 4 years. The new investment will be used to commercialize SEDAR (Spectrum-Enhanced Detection And Ranging) sensor for ADAS and AV. SEDAR generates a 3D point cloud using pulsed illumination methodology.

SWIR is unique in that, from a physics standpoint, most materials exhibit their spectral differences primarily in the SWIR range – in other words, SWIR cameras can sense the differences between various materials and make them visible,” says Avi Bakal, CEO and co-founder of TriEye. “This is because every material has a unique spectral response, or signature, defined by its chemical composition and physical characteristics, impacting how wavelengths are absorbed or reflected. By comparing the relative reflection of light between different materials in carefully chosen spectral bands, a distinction between materials is easily revealed. Simply put, SWIR reveals critical sensing information which simply does not exist in other wavelengths.

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Forza Reports Mastering BSI Process for its High Speed Imagers

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BusinessWire: While BSI sensors have been available for more than 10 years in many cellphones and standard digital cameras, the manufacturing process is inherently more difficult than comparable FSI sensors as it requires additional manufacturing steps. The realities of semiconductor economics have also made it difficult to transfer the technology from the high production volumes of standard cameras to the lower volumes of high-speed imaging sensors.

Overcoming these issues, Forza Silicon leveraged its Integrated Production Services (IPS) capabilities to optimize the manufacturing process for BSI sensors and achieve practical yields.

These in-house services include prototype and wafer probe development, qualification services, yield optimization, and production test and delivery,” says Loc Duc Truong, VP of Engineering, Forza Silicon. “Together, these capabilities have enabled us to overcome the manufacturing challenges associated with BSI sensors.

The high-speed BSI sensor design is the result of a collaboration between Forza Silicon and Vision Research.

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OmniVision Unveils Its First RGBC Sensor With Always-on Capability for Selfie Cameras

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BusinessWire: OmniVision announces the OV32C, a RGBC 32MP image sensor in a 1/3.2-inch optical format for front-facing mobile phone “selfie” cameras.  The OV32C’s low power modes can help enable “always-on” user experiences by facilitating AI processing to automate many of the common tasks of the camera, such as face detection, QR code scans, etc.

Image sensors for front facing ‘selfie’ cameras are expected to grow 4.7% CAGR over the next five years, with smartphone front camera image sensor revenues reaching US$4.4 billion by 2026,” says Pierre Cambou, principal analyst, Imaging at Yole Développement. “Stacking technology is giving more degree of freedom to image sensor designers to embed advanced pre-ISP algorithms; this could be a game changer for RGBC sensors by solving the difficulties of their non-Bayer arrangement. Adding ‘always-on’ smart capabilities to phone cameras will bring a new level of ergonomics and performance to the phone’s user interface.

The OV32C is our first sensor for the mobile phone market to feature RGBC―providing a 50% boost in overall sensitivity to enhance low-light image quality. Additionally, we’ve reduced design complexity for OEMs with an on-chip RGBC-to-Bayer fusion algorithm, therefore, a separate RGBC processing unit isn’t required,” says Arun Jayaseelan, staff marketing manager at OmniVision.

The OV32C is built on 0.7µm PureCel Plus-S pixel. RGBC technology uses a 4-cell color filter pattern with clear pixels and on-chip RGBC-to-Bayer fusion. It supports CPHY and DPHY interfaces and can output 15 fps at 32MP, or 30 fps at 8MP with on-chip fusion, for premium video and image quality. The OV32C also offers dual DOVDD support at 1.8 and 1.2 volts.

Samples of the OV32C are available now.

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Tower Semi Updates on its Imaging Business

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SeekingAlpha: Tower Semi Q3 earnings call gives an update on the company's imaging business:

"Our imaging business represented more than 15% of our revenues. We continue to see very strong demand in the industrial and machine vision markets, as well as the medical and dental X-ray markets. Our customers in these areas are highly interested in securing capacity for the coming years, seeing long-term market demand.

We recently partnered with the University of Southern California to announce a breakthrough development in LiDAR IC technology designed for advanced driver assistance systems, and ultimately self-driving cars.

Our stitch field sensors is very high margin. Overall the imaging margins are very strong. Even non-stitch field imaging margins are very strong..."

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It’s Official Now: TSMC-Sony Fab in Japan

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Sony and TSMC jointly announce: TSMC and Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation (“SSS”)  jointly announce that TSMC will establish a subsidiary, Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing, Inc. (“JASM”), in Kumamoto, Japan to provide foundry service with initial technology of 22/28-nanometer processes to address strong global market demand for specialty technologies, with SSS participating as a minority shareholder.

Construction of JASM’s fab in Japan is scheduled to begin in the 2022 calendar year with production targeted to begin by the end of 2024. The fab is expected to directly create about 1,500 high-tech professional jobs and to have a monthly production capacity of 45,000 12-inch wafers. The initial capital expenditure is estimated to be approximately US$7 billion with strong support from the Japanese government.

Under definitive agreements reached between TSMC and SSS, SSS plans to make an equity investment in JASM of approximately US$0.5 billion, which will represent a less than 20% equity stake in JASM. The closing of the transaction between TSMC and SSS is subject to customary closing conditions.

While the global semiconductor shortage is expected to be prolonged, we expect partnership with TSMC to contribute to securing a stable supply of logic wafers, not only for us but also for the overall industry. We believe that further strengthening and deepening our partnership with TSMC, which has the world’s leading semiconductor production technology, is extremely meaningful for the Sony Group,” says Terushi Shimizu, President and CEO of Sony Semiconductor Solutions.

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Pixart Expects Lower Sales

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Digitimes: PixArt Imaging expects to post sequential revenue decreases through December due mainly to uneven inventories across different chip types and tight foundry capacity supply, but is guardedly optimistic about its business prospects.

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Image Sensors Contribute 19% to Axcelis Revenue

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Axcelis reports that ion implanters for image sensor manufacturing contribute 19% to its 2020 revenue:

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Fight for Velodyne Control Continues

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BusinessWire: David Hall, Velodyne founder and the owner of 42.9% of the common stock, issued a statement:

"While we welcome the news of Brad Culkin's retirement from the Board, it does not remedy the fact that we believe Chairman Michael Dee continues to lead Velodyne Lidar down the path of financial ruin. During Mr. Dee’s tenure, Velodyne Lidar has fallen from its position as a global leader in lidar technology and innovation, and the Board has undertaken a series of anti-stockholder actions that has, in our view, resulted in insular corporate governance, troubling underperformance and strategic incompetency."

BusinessWire: Meanwhile, Velodyne announces a new CEO, Theodore “Ted” L. Tewksbury, instead of Anand Gopalan who has been heavily criticized by David Hall:

"Dr. Tewksbury is a proven technology executive with more than 30 years of leadership experience across a series of public and private companies. Dr. Tewksbury most recently served as Chief Executive Officer of Eta Compute, a leading provider of ultra-low power AI vision systems. Prior to Eta Compute, he held several chief executive and board positions at leading high-technology companies, including Entropic Communications and Integrated Device Technology. Dr. Tewksbury is an accomplished engineer, with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from MIT. He has held a variety of engineering and management positions in his career, including introducing over 180 innovative new product families during his time at Maxim Integrated Products."


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Microsoft-China and Sony-Shanghai Partner on AI Camera Solutions

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Microsoft China and Sony Semiconductor Solutions (Shanghai) Ltd. announce a Partner Enablement Program to encourage China local qualified independent software vendors (ISV) and system integrators (SI) partners creating commercial AI camera-driven solutions, which combines Sony’s IMX500 AI-enabled sensor with Microsoft Azure’s AI technology capabilities to achieve AI processing on edge. As part of the partnership, Microsoft and Sony jointly launched Co-Innovation Labs in China for partners and enterprise customers in the areas of computer vision and video analytics, which offers access and facilities to build, develop, prototype and test solutions for partners and customers.


BusinessWire: Hanshow has announced a commercial AI camera-driven retail solution, developed through a collaboration with Microsoft and Sony. In a busy retail setting, staff are often unable to complete timely and accurate monitoring of product shelf status. This results in products being out-of-stock, improperly arranged, lost sales, unsatisfied customers, and unattractive store appearance. Meanwhile, customer flow analysis is crucial for retailers to better understand customer behavior in their stores including traffic, visited areas, customer paths, dwell time and loyalty.

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Nikon COOLPIX 300 retro review

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Launched in 1996, the Nikon COOLPIX 300 was more than just a digital camera. Sure it could capture 0.3 MP images, but also let you jot notes or record voice memos. In this retro review, I tried out the COOLPIX 300, 25 years after its launch!…

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Image Sensors Measure Water and Oil Quality

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Image sensors find use in quite unusual decices such as water quality meter and oil breakdown meter:

Theelec: Pixelplus develops a sensor for water quality measurement with Thewavetalk. Water quality measurement devices use lasers to measure whether there are unwanted particles inside the liquid. Pixelplus is developing a 3 level stacked chip that combines an image sensor, a water quality signal processor and a memory.


University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, publish an MDPI paper "Characterization of Dielectric Oil with a Low-Cost CMOS Imaging Sensor and a New Electric Permittivity Matrix Using the 3D Cell Method" by José Miguel Monzón-Verona, Pablo Ignacio González-Domínguez, Santiago García-Alonso, and Jenifer Vaswani Reboso.

"In this paper, a new method for characterizing the dielectric breakdown voltage of dielectric oils is presented, based on the IEC 60156 international standard. In this standard, the effective value of the dielectric breakdown voltage is obtained, but information is not provided on the distribution of Kelvin forces an instant before the dynamic behavior of the arc begins or the state of the gases that are produced an instant after the moment of appearance of the electric arc in the oil. In this paper, the behavior of the oil before and after the appearance of the electric arc is characterized by combining a low-cost CMOS imaging sensor and a new matrix of electrical permittivity associated with the dielectric oil, using the 3D cell method. In this way, we also predict the electric field before and after the electric rupture. The error compared to the finite element method is less than 0.36%. In addition, a new method is proposed to measure the kinematic viscosity of dielectric oils."

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David Stoppa and Matteo Perenzoni to Lead Sony Technology Center in Italy

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As reported earlier, Sony opens a new Technology Development Center in Trento, Italy. The LinkedIn records reveal that leaders of the new center are SPAD experts David Stoppa and Matteo Perenzoni:

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TSMC Publishes Noise Data for Pixel-Level Stacked Circuits

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TSMC publishes an IEEE Journal on Electron Device Society paper "Statistical Analysis of Random Telegraph Noises of MOSFET Subthreshold Currents Using a 1M Array Test Chip in a 40 nm Process" by Calvin Yi-Ping Chao; Meng-Hsu Wu; Shang-Fu Yeh; Chin-Hao Chang; Chi-Lin Lee; Chin Yin; Kuo-Yu Chou; Honyih Tu that has an interesting noise data for pixel-stacked circuits that operate at pA currents per pixel:

"It is difficult to measure the random telegraph noises (RTN) of MOSFET subthreshold currents at the sub-pA level directly and accurately. In this work, we used a charge integration method similar to the operation of the CMOS image sensors (CIS) to characterize the RTN of subthreshold currents approximately from 1 fA to 1 nA, using a test chip of 1M cell array in a 40 nm process. We found that each RTN trap was active only within a specific window of gate voltages. The trap became less active or inactive outside the corresponding window of operations. We showed that the sets of RTN-active devices under different gate voltages were different. Furthermore, the choice of sampling frequency in measuring RTN and the number of sampled data points determined the observable range of RTN emission and capture time constants. For the data measured by sampling periods of 3.82 s, 299 ms, and 372 μs , different sets of RTN traps were observed with different spans of time constants. The combined time constants range was about 7 orders of magnitude. For single-trap RTN, we found and verified a relation between the probability of trap occupancy (PTO) and the ratio of root-mean-square random noise (RN) versus the RTN amplitude."

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Tsuzuri Project to donate high-resolution facsimile of The Wind and Thunder Gods screens to Kenninji Temple in Kyoto Prefecture

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Yole on Thermal Imaging Market

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Yole Developpement: In 2020, thermal imaging and sensing took center stage in the fight against COVID-19. After an Elevated Body/Surface Temperature (EBT/EST) camera sales gold-rush for a great many manufacturers, the demand finally fell in late 2020 and is returning to normal through 2021. The overall thermal imaging market is expected to decrease from $6.6B in 2020 to $6.2B in 2021, settling at a higher revenue point than prepandemic levels. However, a 7.2% CAGR from 2021 to 2026 could make the market climb to $8.8B.

In 2020, Chinese thermal imager manufacturers supplied thermal imagers en masse, mainly due to the EBT/EST applications, and more than doubled their shipment market share in going from 18% in 2019 to 39% in 2020. The market had grown significantly YoY 2019-2020, with every stakeholder profiting. Chinese players reaped more fruit due to their technology ramp-up in the last few years in conjunction with the strong appetite for fever detection cameras, especially in the domestic market, which was more widely accepted than in western countries.

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Eric Fossum, ON Semi, and Kodak Receive Emmy Award for Inventing and Pioneering the Intra-Pixel Charge Transfer CMOS Sensor

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Dartmouth, ON Semi, Yahoo: At the 72nd Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards today, Eric Fossum, ON Semi, and Kodak will be honored for inventing and pioneering the intra-pixel charge transfer CMOS image sensor.

Eric Fossum invented the CMOS active pixel sensor with intra-pixel charge transfer while working at the JPL at Caltech. The technology was further developed by spinoff Photobit and Photobit's partner, Eastman Kodak. Both Eastman Kodak and ON Semiconductor, which acquired yet another spinoff of the Photobit technology via Aptina, will also be honored.

"I am very happy to see the Emmy on my shelf because it reminds me of how new technology can take unexpected turns, and how much the CMOS image sensor technology has benefitted society," said Fossum, who already received his statuette in the mail. "I want to recognize my team members at JPL and at Photobit, and the efforts of thousands of engineers around the world that further improved the technology, although the early JPL inventions remain the basis of the six billion CMOS image sensors made each year."

"One other surprise was learning about the 70-plus year-old design of the statuette. The name 'Emmy' invokes the nickname 'Immy' for old image orthicon vacuum-tube cameras, while the figure represents the arts and its muse, and the atom she holds represents the electrons of television technology. What an exquisite way to express the creative symbiosis of the arts and technology," adds Eric Fossum.

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Canon’s Cinema EOS System celebrated 10-year anniversary

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Omnivision Improves Resolution of its Sensor for Endoscopes

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BusinessWire: OmniVision announces the OVMed OH0FA image sensor and OAH0428 bridge chip for endoscopes and catheters. The OH0FA sensor provides 720x720 resolution at 30 fps, said to be the highest available resolution for ENT, cardiac, arthro, OB-GYN and utero-renal endoscopes.

The OH0FA’s resolution of 720x720 represents a dramatic increase over the previous generation sensor, the OVM6946, at 400x400. The OH0FA area is a 0.93x0.93 mm in a 1/18 inch optical format. Its 1.008 µm pixel size is built on OmniVision’s PureCel Plus-S pixel technology. This next-generation pixel technology also provides the high color fidelity and signal-to-noise ratio of 37.5 dB for crisper images. Additionally, PureCel Plus-S enables the OH0FA’s high full-well capacity, zero blooming and lower power consumption. A version of the OCHFA, based on OmniVision’s CameraCubeChip technology, will be launched soon for single use endoscopes.

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Assorted Videos: GPixel, National Tsing Hua University, Hort-Eye

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GPixel CMO Wim Wuyts talks about the company's solutions for 3D imaging:


IEEE Sensors publishes a 2012 presentation "Linear CMOS Image Sensor with Time-Delay Integration and Interlaced Super-Resolution Pixel" by Jui-Hsin Chang, Kuo-Wei Cheng, Chih-Cheng Hsieh, Wen-Hsu Chang, Hann-Huei Tsai, and Chin-Fong Chiu from National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan:


University of Melbourne and Hort-Eye Pte. publish a video "Multispectral Image Sensors using Metasurfaces" by Ranjith Unnithan:

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Fujifilm INSTAX Link Wide review

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The Fujifilm INSTAX Wide Link is a portable instant photo printer that connects to your phone over Bluetooth and prints any picture onto the largest INSTAX Wide paper. Find out if it's the best instant photo printer in my review!…

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ON Semi on 1.1um Pixel Spatial Resolution Measurements

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ON Semi presents at Conference: Electronic Imaging 2018, Burlingame, CA, "Characterization of Image Sensor Resolution by Single Pixel illumination" by Victor Lenchenkov, Orit Skorka, Robert Gravelle, Ulrich Boettiger, and Radu Ispasoiu. Few slides:

"Illumination single 1.1 um pixel provide information for image sensor PSF and MTF and can be used for image processing and simulation calibration. Measurements PSF across image plane could result in image correction as function of image height."


One can see that microlens layer gives quite a marginal MTF improvement in 1.1um pixel measurements:

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Microsoft iToF Camera Model

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Microsoft publishes an Optics Express paper "Time-of-flight camera characterization with functional modeling for synthetic scene generation" by Sergio Ortiz, Mukhil Azhagan Mallaiyan Sathiaseelan, and Augustine Cha.

"In this manuscript, we design, describe, and present a functional model of Time-of-Flight (ToF) cameras. The model can be used to generate randomized scenes that incorporate depth scenarios with various objects at various depths with varied orientations and illumination intensity. In addition to the potential to generate any random depth scenario, the camera, pixels, and binning are modelled incorporating radial distortion based on camera intrinsic and extrinsic. The model also includes ToF artifacts such as Signal Noise, Crosstalk and Multipath. We measured experimentally the Noise in Time-of-Flight. We experimentally fitted, and simulated with state-of-the art Simulator the Crosstalk effect, and characterized multipath according with the existing literature. Our work can be used to generate as many images as needed for neural network (NN) training and testing. The proposed approach can also be used to benchmark and evaluate both End-to-End ToF algorithms as well as specialized algorithms for denoising, unwrapping, crosstalk, and multipath correction."

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Brigates Renews its IPO Efforts

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Aiji Micro APP: Chinese company Brigates (Ruixin Micro) renews its efforts to go public at Shanghai Stock Exchange:

"After years of intensive cultivation, Ruixin Micro has possessed a number of domestic leading and internationally advanced core technologies in the field of image sensor circuit design, pixel design and image processing. In particular, the MCCD and ECCD technologies independently developed by Ruixin Micro combine the advantages of traditional CCD and CMOS, significantly improve the imaging quality of image sensors, and promote the development of domestic image sensor technology. At present, the company has become one of the few companies in the world that master ECCD technology."

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Thesis on Pixel Noise Reduction

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Delft University publishes Xiaoliang GE's PhD thesis "Temporal Noise Reduction in CMOS Image Sensors."

"In pursuit of achieving the noise condition of single-photon imaging, system-level and circuit-level innovations and optimizations for CMOS image sensor (CIS) noise reduction are called for. Stimulated by this motivation, this thesis focuses on reducing the temporal noise generated in the pixels and the readout electronics."

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Canon’s PowerShot ZOOM wins Silver Award at DFA Design for Asia Awards 2021

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Sony SWIR Sensor Designers Interview

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Sony publishes an interview with its SWIR InGaAs stacked sensor designers. Few quotes:

"...the miniaturization of SWIR image sensors had been hindered by the use of bump connection. We already knew that this problem could possibly be solved using the Cu-Cu connection*2, which is the stacking technology Sony had developed for years for image sensors. This technology would make it possible to align pixels at a micro-pitch. Meanwhile, conventional image sensors use silicon as a photoelectric conversion layer, but this material does not absorb the SWIR range of light. So, we needed to use indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) as the photodiode material that can absorb the SWIR spectrum and convert the light energy into electric signals. This material was never used in Sony’s image sensors before, but however, Another division of Sony had the compound semiconductor technology to produce InGaAs.

Another point was that conventional SWIR image sensors had many defects. White patches would appear in the dark image due to the quality issues particular to InGaAs. We had the technology to make compound semiconductors based on our years of expertise in developing laser technology, so we aimed to leverage it in creating defect-free, high-quality products.

As it was the Group’s first-ever SWIR image sensor to be developed using InGaAs, we thoroughly reviewed challenges to be addressed, which resulted in more than 300 in the early stages of the development. As we proceeded further into the development, we found more issues to deal with. There turned out to be so many challenges awaiting."

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Nikon Z 24-120mm f4 S review

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The Nikon Z 24-120mm f4 S is a 5x zoom for the Z mirrorless system, and the successor to the AF-S 24-120mm f4G VR from 2010. Find out if it's a worthy upgrade in our in-depth review!…

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Yole on Mobile CIS Market

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Yole Developpement publishes "Smartphone flagship battle from sensors to modules to image quality - Webcast"


China seems to become an image sensor land: 3 out of 10 largest semiconductor companies are designing image sensors, while SMIC, the 4th company, manufactures them:

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Sony Reports 9% YoY CIS Sales Drop

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Sony reports lower mobile image sensor sales in the last quarter, leaves full-year forecast unchanged:

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Canon’s activities lead to the removal of 3,294 listings from Amazon in Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands and Turkey

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