Samsung Expects LiDAR Market to Overgrow CIS in 2026

September 6, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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SEMI Europe Summit publishes a couple of slides from the presentations including Samsung prediction about LiDAR market:


Once we are at LiDARs, Yole Developpement publishes its estimations of design wins for LiDAR companies:

SEMI Europe also publishes few other interesting slides:

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MIPI D-PHY v.3.0 Standard Increases Speed to 11Gbps per Lane

September 5, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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The MIPI Alliance announces a major update to its MIPI D-PHY specification for connecting megapixel cameras and high-resolution displays to application processors. Version 3.0 doubles the data rate of D-PHY’s standard channel to 9 Gbps for the standard channel (and 11 Gbps for its short channel), while extending the power efficiency of the specification.

In tandem with the boost in data rate, D-PHY v3.0 introduces a Continuous-Time Linear Equalizer (CTLE) on the receiver side of a connection to maintain the interface’s superior power efficiency. D-PHY v3.0 is fully compatible with previous versions of the MIPI specification.

“Pixel rates in camera and display applications are constantly increasing, and v3.0 of D-PHY provides the leap in data rate necessary to support next-generation image sensors while extending the specification’s low-power attribute,” said Joel Huloux, chairman of MIPI Alliance. “MIPI continues to innovate its PHY interfaces to enable advancements in camera and display applications and emerging market dynamics.”

In conjunction with the release of D-PHY v3.0, MIPI Alliance also announces version 2.1 of MIPI C-PHY, which provides high throughput and superior power efficiency to connect displays and cameras to application processors. The specification supports symbol rates up to 6 Gigasymbols per second (Gsps), equivalent to 13.7 Gbps, over the standard channel and up to 8 Gsps over the short channel. A new 64-bit PHY Protocol Interface (PPI) in v2.1 provides a wider bus between C-PHY and a chip’s core logic for better support of higher-performance applications. The new version of the interface is fully compatible with previous versions of C-PHY.

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Smartsens Launches its First 1um Pixel Product

September 4, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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SmartSens launches the SC1600CS, a 16MP CMOS sensor with a 1.0 µm pixel, targeting at front-facing cellphone camera applications.

The SC1600CS offers 16MP resolution with the smallest pixel size in SmartSens’ products at 1.0 µm. It also features SFCPixel technology and low noise reading circuit design to deliver full-color night vision. Furthermore, the SC1600CS integrates QCell technology to provide QCell Bin mode. The QCell color filter array on the SC1600CS uses QCell binning to output 4MP images with 3x the sensitivity, improving the SNR and dynamic range by 13% and 8.5dB respectively.

The SC1600CS is currently available for sampling and expected to start mass production in Q4 of 2021.

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SkyWater Foundry Announces 90nm MPW Program

September 4, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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SkyWater Technology, an ex-Cypress fab located  in Minneapolis area, MN, is accepting design submissions for its 90 nm readout integrated circuit (S90ROIC) MPW program, including support for ITAR designs. The program is targeted for specialized aerospace and defense applications, LIDAR and LADAR and other applications ranging from automotive sensing, microbolometers and medical x-ray to augmented reality, industrial machine vision and security, among others. Design submissions for SkyWater’s initial enhanced S90ROIC MPW shuttle are now being accepted with a GDS-II cutoff date in November 2021.

SkyWater’s updated S90ROIC platform provides low noise performance buried channel transistors as well as native transistors, seven layers of metal interconnect, MIM capacitors (oxynitride and high-k), and both room temperature and cryogenic models (77-150K), which are necessary for use in space, aviation, and other high-performance applications. For production designs or dedicated tape-outs, the process also supports stitching for large-format imagers, topside planarized contacts, TSVs for in-pixel backside contact and radiation-tolerant options. Volume ROIC manufacturing is available at SkyWater’s ISO 9001, ITAR-compliant and DMEA-accredited Trusted U.S. production facility.

“We are pleased to offer our S90ROIC MPW program to provide secure design support for customers to achieve prototyping, device characterization, and IP validation quickly,” said John Kent, EVP, technology development and design enablement at SkyWater. “Our MPW program addresses our growing aerospace and defense customer demand and provides a secure avenue for creating critical applications for national defense. The program also offers commercial customers the reliability, IP security and high-quality manufacturing that we provide in our U.S.-owned and operated facility.”

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Era of 2.2V Supply Coming?

September 3, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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It appears that Samsung starts to use 2.2V supply in its new pixel designs:


"By reducing a pixel power supply voltage (Vpix), power consumption for pixel was reduced, but full-well capacity (FWC) was also decreased. However, by lowering the conversion gain (CG) and applying a negative voltage to the ground (NGND) of the pixel, FWC of 6000 e- was achieved without any degradation of both charge transfer lags and backflow noise. In addition, the signal linearity in the reduced analog-to-digital (ADC) range was improved by optimizing the source follower (SF). For dark performances, white spots and dark current worsened by NGND were significantly improved by forcing more negative voltage to the transfer gate (TG) when it was turned off."


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SUSS MicroTec and SET Form a Hybrid Bonding Partnership

September 3, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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SUSS MicroTec and SET signed a joint development agreement to develop a cluster, including several modules such as surface preparation, cleaning, bonding and metrology.

As part of this partnership, SUSS MicroTec’s high-efficiency surface preparation modules and throughput-optimized metrology solutions for post bond overlay verification will be combined with SET’s latest ultra-high accuracy D2W hybrid bonding platform.

Goetz M. Bendele, CEO of SUSS MicroTec, says: “With our partnership with SET, we will be able to offer our customers a complete suite of both die-to-wafer and wafer-to-wafer hybrid bonding solutions for the broadest set of heterogeneous integration applications in the advanced backend space. Our die-to-wafer bonding solution, leveraging the combination of SET’s leading-precision die placement technology with SUSS’s proven surface activation, automation, and metrology capabilities, will deliver additional customer value through differentiation in terms of throughput and yield, while at the same time enabling friction-less integration into our customers’ fabrication sites.”

Pascal Metzger, CEO of SET, says: “Thanks to several partnerships we had & our more than 10 years experience in hybrid bonding, we have succeeded in taking hybrid bonding from a purely laboratory state to an industrial state. Thus in September 2019, SET launched a stand-alone machine – the NEO HB. Thanks to our new partnership with SUSS MicroTec, we are now going to accelerate the integration and automation phase of the process.”

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8th Harvest Imaging Forum

September 2, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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8th Harvest Imaging Forum is to be held on December 9-10, 2021 in Delft, the Netherlands. The Forum will be a hybrid one meaning that both in-person and remote attendances are possible:

  • One can attend in-person and benefit in an utmost way of the live interaction with the speakers and audience,
  • There will be also a live broadcast of the forum, still interactions with the speakers through a chat box will be made possible,
  • Finally the forum also can be watched on-line at a later date.
The 2021 Harvest Imaging forum has two subjects in the field of solid-state imaging and two speakers. Both speakers are world-level experts in their own fields.
  • "Dark current, dim points and bright spots : coming to the dark side of image sensors"
    Daniel McGrath (GOODiX, USA)


  • "Random Telegraph Signal and Radiation Induced Defects in CMOS Image Sensors"
    Vincent Goiffon (ISAE-SUPAERO, France)

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Fujifilm GFX50S II review so far

September 2, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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The Fujifilm GFX50S Mark II is a medium format mirrorless camera with 51.4 Megapixels and built-in stabilisation. It takes the body of the GFX100S but fits it with the 51.4 Megapixel sensor from the original GFX models to hit a more affordable price point while still delivering more than enough detail for most of us. Here’s my review so far!…

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Samsung Announces 50MP 1um Pixel Sensor with All-Direction PDAF

September 2, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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BusinessWire: Samsung introduces the ISOCELL GN5, the first image sensor to adopt all-directional focusing Dual Pixel Pro technology with two photodiodes in a single 1.0μm pixel.

The ISOCELL GN5 is the industry’s first 1.0μm image sensor to integrate Dual Pixel Pro, an all-directional autofocusing technology. This technology places two photodiodes, the smallest in the industry, within each 1.0μm pixel of the sensor either horizontally or vertically to recognize pattern changes in all directions. With one million phase-detecting multi-directional photodiodes covering all areas of the sensor, the ISOCELL GN5’s autofocusing becomes instantaneous, enabling sharper images in either bright or low-lit environments.

The image sensor also makes use of Samsung’s proprietary pixel technology, which applies Front Deep Trench Isolation (FDTI) on a Dual Pixel product for the first time in the industry. Despite the microscopic photodiode size, FDTI enables each photodiode to absorb and hold more light information, improving the photodiodes’ FWC and decreasing crosstalk within the pixel.

Samples of GN5 are currently available.

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Samsung Announces 200MP 0.64um Pixel Mobile Sensor

September 2, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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BusinessWire: Samsung introduces the ISOCELL HP1, the industry’s first 200MP sensor with 0.64μm pixels. For low-light photography, the ISOCELL HP1 features a newly developed ChameleonCell technology, a pixel-binning that uses a two-by-two, four-by-four or full pixel layout depending on the environment. In a low-lit environment, the HP1 transforms into a 12.5MP image sensor with large 2.56μm pixels by merging 16 neighboring pixels. In bright outdoor environments, the sensor’s 200MP can capture high-definition photos on mobile devices.

The ISOCELL HP1 can take 8K videos at 30 fps with minimum loss in FoV. The HP1 merges four neighboring pixels to bring the resolution down to 50MP or 8,192 x 6,144 to take 8K (7,680 x 4,320) videos without the need to crop or scale down the full image resolution.

Samples of ISOCELL HP1 are currently available.


Samsung also publishes a video PR:

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Samsung 108MP Sensor was Designed in India

September 1, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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GadgetsNow quotes Balajee Sowrirajan, MD of Samsung Semiconductor India Research (SSIR), saying that  Samsung’s R&D center in Bengaluru, India, led the development of the mobile 108MP ISOCELL HMX sensor launched two years ago.

“We did the entire product planning, details of the product, kind of image quality, performance in terms of frame rate, dark light performance, and power dissipation. Our team designed the specifications, did the hardware design, and then sent it to South Korea for manufacturing. It was then sent back to us to develop the software that runs on the product. It was an end-to-end effort.”

The key challenge is said to be the uniform power distribution across the sensor to get good sensor pixel characteristics and ensure uniform noise distribution. Time to market was also a huge challenge. The project was initiated in 2018 and needed to be completed by the end of 2019.

SSIR is the largest Samsung R&D center outside of South Korea, with over 2,700 employees. Other than image sensor design, the center develops mobile SOCs, TC chips, software, etc.

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Lynred Integrates ISP onto Microbolometric Sensor

August 31, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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ALANews: Lynred unveils the ATI320, its first advanced thermal imager with embedded image signal processing. The product’s embedded features, with a lens available as an option, aim at saving camera makers time and effort in integrating thermal imaging during the development and manufacturing process, enabling them to speed products to market.

ATI320 simplifies the calibration process during camera assembly, relieving manufacturers from performing complex steps. A key motivation underpinning the product’s advanced design is in eliminating tricky integration steps, in order to extend access to infrared technology for newer thermal image market entrants.

 “ATI320 marks a milestone in Lynred’s strategic development towards bringing more ambitious and innovative value-added propositions to key markets,” said Jean-Yves Dussaud, CMO at Lynred. ”This Advanced Thermal Imager is the culmination of our teams’ latest know-how and dexterity in developing image processing solutions, electronics and software for our microbolometer technology, in which we have a 20-year legacy.”

ATI320 (16x16mm) is the most compact QVGA (320×240 pixels) resolution thermal imager available and comes with ruggedized housing. It is available in two models: ATI320L (with lens) and ATI320S (without lens).

The key spec:
  • Resolution: 320×240; 12µm pixel pitch
  • NETD (Noise Equivalent Temperature Difference): f/1, 300 K scene, 20°C ambient for ATI320S version: <60mK
  • Scene dynamic >100°C
  • Operating T°C range: -40°C; +85°C
  • Full digital product with power consumption <400mW, when an image signal processing is fully activated
  • Frame rate: 60Hz
  • Standards compliance: Mil-Std-810/883
  • Weight: <3g for ATI320S version; <7g for ATI320L version

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Galaxycore History

August 31, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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EastMoney, MooreElite, Laoyaoba publish a glorified history of Galaxycore from early days to IPO. Few quotes:

"I personally think that Galaxycore is a very lucky company." [CEO] Zhao Lixin attributed the primary factor of Galaxycore's success to luck.

In business before, Zhao Lixin just an ordinary back from the US technology engineer, has worked in Chartered Semiconductor, the United States ESS company, UT StarcomEngage in related work. In 2003, with the initial investment of 2 million US dollars from high school students and his own patents in the field of high-end image sensors, Zhao Lixin returned to China and founded Galaxycore.

In the early days, Zhao Lixin planned the development of Galaxycore as follows: first make the process, then do the technology well, and then make the product. To achieve the market from the source of technology, this is not in line with business logic. Zhao Lixin also admitted, "It was a bit crazy at the time, Don Quixote style." Such an idea was destined to fail to produce results in the market environment at the time.

When Galaxycore started, it was just when SMIC wanted to make an image sensor. The two sides hit it off. Galaxycore helped SMIC establish the CIS production process line, and SMIC was responsible for its R&D expenses. When colleagues complained about "burning money", Galaxycore survived unbelievably, "If we had paid for it, we would have burned to death."

Galaxycore's fortune continued, “When we started selling products, the market was out of stock.” In early 2005, many of its peers had no time to take into account the relatively small PC market at that time and focused on the high-end mobile phone market. "Although the technical content of the PC market is not high, this is the starting point for Galaxycore to survive." Zhao Lixin said.

After seizing this unattended market gap, Galaxycore sold 16 million chips in 2005, with sales reaching 5 million U.S. dollars and achieving profitability. This kind of performance was rare in the industry at that time, which also helped Galaxycore to successfully obtain the investment from Walden International and Sequoia Capital.

With a firm foothold in the low-end chip market, Galaxycore has further exerted its cost advantages, “wherever it goes, no grass will grow.” By 2014, Galaxycore's CMOS Image Sensor IC shipments exceeded 940 million.

Zhao Lixin has always emphasized that an enterprise cannot go far without the core technology of its own creation. At present, Galaxycore has completely independent intellectual property rights in the design and algorithms of CMOS image sensors and multimedia processors, as well as the world's leading and most competitive manufacturing process technology. It has obtained a number of US patents on the structure and process of CMOS image sensors, nearly 200 domestic invention and utility model patents, and more than 260 Chinese patents on the structure of CMOS image sensors are under review.

Zhao Lixin proudly mentioned that Galaxycore has at least about ten patents, which are very basic and breakthrough innovations in this field.

In recent years, Galaxycore has developed an innovative packaging patent for Chip On Module (COM), and has spent five or six years developing special equipment for this purpose. This breakthrough invention played a vital role in the company's future development and also brought considerable profits to the company.

Zhao Lixin introduced Galaxycore's technical advantages: the number of lithography layers is 20% less than that of the competition, and the die size is 30% less than that of the competition. These two advantages are superimposed on each other, and the cost advantage is huge.

Under fierce competition, Galaxycore hopes to promote a differentiated strategy. In the low-end products, Galaxycore will stick to its position in the mobile phone market; in the high-end products, it will cooperate with IDM giants in the CMOS image sensor industry to meet the needs of the Chinese market.

Not only competing with IDM, but also cooperating with IDM, Zhao Lixin emphasized: We must dance with wolves and live with them.

Landing in the capital market brings new opportunities for Zhao Lixin. According to the prospectus, Galaxycore plans to raise 6.96 billion yuan in this initial public offering, of which 6.376 billion yuan will be used for 12-inch CIS integrated circuit characteristic process research and development and industrialization projects, and 584 million yuan will be used for CMOS image sensor research and development. project. "After going public, we will transform to the Fab-Lite model." Zhao Lixin said that in the future, the company will expand its own production capacity by building part of its production lines, and enhance the company's high-end products. Research and development capabilities and speed of research and development.

"Galaxycore's goal is to let the world see China's innovation." Zhao Lixin said, "We have been on this road for 18 years, and there will be more 18 years waiting for us to move forward."

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GPixel Unveils 4/3-inch 10MP 2,000fps Global Shutter Sensor

August 30, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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Gpixel announces a high-speed global shutter sensor, GSPRINT4510, a new member of GSPRINT series targeting high speed applications.

GSPRINT4510 is a 10MP 4/3” (22.9mm) sensor based on 4.5 µm charge domain global shutter pixel. It has more than 30 ke- full well and less than 3 e- rms read noise. Using an advanced 65 nm CIS process with light pipe technology, the sensor achieves >65% QE and more than 1/40,000 shutter efficiency. With on-chip charge binning, full well capacity can be further increased and frame rate is almost quadrupled.

GSPRINT4510 will be offered in two variants to support in the most optimal way different end-use use cases. One version is dedicated to 3D laser profiling and supports 144 pairs sub-LVDS channels running at 1.2Gbps each, which delivers 2000 fps in 8-bit operation at 2048 rows and >3500 fps with an ROI of 1024 rows in combination with several HDR modes. Incorporating a thinner glass lid to reduce stray light reflection, the option to have no micro lenses, and either a sealed or removable glass lid makes GSPRINT4510 a good solution for 3D laser scanning applications.

For other applications including high-speed industrial inspection, life science imaging and 4K video applications, the sensor is offered in monochrome, color and achieve up to 500 fps @ 12-bit, 1008 fps @ 10-bit and 1928 fps @ 8-bit with full resolution. On-chip 2×2 charge binning can boost frame rates more than x3 with a full well charge increase to 120 ke-. Flexible output channel multiplex modes make it possible to reduce frame and data rate to make it compatible with all available camera interface options. This version of the sensor incorporates micro lenses and a sealed glass lid making GSPRINT4510 a good choice for many applications such as 4/3”(MFT) format global shutter cameras in slow motion capture or drone-mounted videography.

Both versions of GSPRINT4510 are packaged in a 454-pin uPGA ceramic package which is pin-compatible with GSPRINT4521. GSPRINT4510 monochrome engineering samples can be ordered today for delivery in October 2021.

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Hamamatsu Presents Position-Detecting Computational Sensor

August 29, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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Hamamatsu Photonics has developed a new profile sensor with an embedded computing function. This sensor, S15366, is specifically designed to calculate signals from the incident light spot within its processing chip and output incident light position information. Since this new profile sensor can output the incident light positions as coordinate data, it needs no external controller for computing processing.

Sales of this new profile sensor are scheduled to start from September 1, 2021 mainly for manufacturers of surveying equipment and factory automation equipment.

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New Kasalis Active Alignment Machine Features 5nm Resolution

August 28, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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BusinessWire: Kasalis, an active alignment company founded in 2011 acquired by Jabil in 2015, re-launches its brand and website. "Today, we are excited to announce a new brand direction from Jabil Kasalis to simply Kasalis. We believe shifting to our established and independent brand identity will better demonstrate our distinctive value in the market." Although Kasalis remains a technology division of Jabil Inc., it appears that Jabil prepares to sell it or spin it off.

“Kasalis shares the entrepreneurial approach of a startup within a global technology and manufacturing leader, Jabil,” said Mark Kozak, director of engineering at Kasalis.

“Kasalis is constantly innovating and reinventing new ways to share why our experience and knowledge makes us the only choice when absolute optical manufacturing precision is required,” said Justin Roe, co-founder and president of Kasalis. “Our brand identity recognizes that Kasalis welcomes business from customers large and small; from those who require Kasalis’ particular expertise as well as those who rely upon multiple Jabil services.”

Kasalis Pixd 700 alignment machine achieves a remarkable mechanical resolution of 5nm, similar or better than EUV photolithography. I've never thought that such a resolution is needed for optical modules.


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Hamamatsu Explains its Photon-Resolving Sensor to Uninitiated

August 27, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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Hamamatsu publishes a popular explanation of its photon number resolving Quest camera advantages:

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SWIR Quantum Dot PDs Has 80% QE and 10ns Response Time, but High Dark Current

August 27, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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Matter publishes EPFL and Toronto University paper "Colloidal quantum dot photodetectors with 10-ns response time and 80% quantum efficiency at 1,550 nm" by Maral Vafaie, James Z.Fan, Amin Morteza Najarian, Olivier Ouellette, Laxmi Kishore Sagar, Koen Bertens, Bin Sun, F. Pelayo García de Arquer, Edward H.Sargent.

"To date, CQD photodetectors operating in the short-wave IR have failed to provide the combination of high responsivity, detectivity, and fast temporal response. To advance this field, large-diameter CQDs are needed that combine passivation with efficient charge transport.

Here, we present an efficient ligand-exchange strategy tailored to large CQDs having a band gap of 0.8 eV. The new well-passivated stable colloidal quantum dots enable high-quality CQD photoactive layers with exceptional optoelectronic properties. As a result, short-wavelength IR photodetectors operating at 1,550 nm with a record external quantum efficiency, reasonable detectivity, and fast response time are demonstrated."

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Quantum Dot Progress Review

August 26, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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Science publishes a review paper "Semiconductor quantum dots: Technological progress and future challenges" by F. Pelayo García de Arquer, Dmitri V. Talapin, Victor I. Klimov, Yasuhiko Arakawa, Manfred Bayer, Edward H. Sargent from University of Toronto (Canada), Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (Spain), University of Chicago (USA), Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA), University of Tokyo (Japan), and Technische Universitat Dortmund (Germany.)

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Sony Automotive Sensors Development Began as an Application for Security Image Sensor, but Automotive Requirements Turned to be Unprecedentedly Stringent

August 26, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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Sony publishes an interview with its automotive image sensor designers explaining why the company is still having difficulties on this market. Few quotes:

Automotive settings present harsh conditions to overcome, such as high temperature, humidity, and vibration, while high quality must be ensured. This meant that the design, manufacturing, and quality assurance divisions had their own unique challenges to address and conquer.

J.Azami: In the beginning, the project started to develop automotive image sensors modelled on security image sensors. The basic idea was that the security sensors had the attributes that were useful for automotive sensors, such as extensive durability and the ability to capture images in dark places. However, once the business became established, we found out that the automotive image sensors had a whole set of different requirements. Those days, I would visit customers overseas and come back feeling deflated at their feedback, time and again.

Y. Sakano: I have always been interested in HDR, and Azami-san’s invitation was all welcome. But there was a problem. Image sensors for automotive cameras require very high quality standards, and initial defect rate had to be extremely low. Normally, other image sensors are improved iteratively through a course of repeated production cycles. Whereas, automotive image sensors must be manufactured by mature processes, and this was an unwritten rule.

M. Nishizuka: The standards like IATF 16949 and ISO 26262 are clear enough themselves, but it was very difficult to adapt our work processes to them. To probe and understand each standard was difficult in itself, but it was even more challenging to align our project members to this understanding. It was necessary that every member understood and implemented the ways of doing things that were unfamiliar to us.

T. Shimozono: The requirements set out in those standards like IATF 16949 and ISO 26262 were very specific, different from ones we normally handled. We needed to find out the ways to apply them in manufacturing in practice. Another particularity of automotive applications is that so many customer inspections were involved. How we interpreted the standards often turned out to be unsatisfactory to our customers, who gave us feedback with their specific requests, as well. It was such hard work to meet all these requirements and requests.

M. Nishizuka: The dashboard can heat up over 100°C in summer time. So, the sensor must be able to withstand these temperatures. Secondly, driving on a road causes vibration. It takes extremely high levels of engineering to make precision devices that withstand vibration and operate without making errors.
Also, as Sakano-san mentioned it earlier, there is the zero-defects expectation, that is, to minimize the initial defect. The request was below 1 ppm, which means fewer than one defective unit in every one million produced. In order to meet the requirements of both high performance and reliability, we had to set up the product evaluation environment as strict as never before.

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Ex-Tower Fellow Assaf Lahav Joins GPixel

August 25, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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Gpixel announces that ex-Tower Semiconductor Fellow Assaf Lahav joined its executive management team to become Gpixel’s VP of Pixel and Advanced Technology. He brings more than 20 years of experience in pixel development and CIS technology.

Xinyang Wang, Chairman, Founder and CEO of Gpixel group explains: “We are very excited to have Dr. Lahav joining our executive team. I have been working with Dr. Lahav since 2012 when Gpixel was started. Over the years, Dr. Lahav helped us make excellent global shutter pixels and undoubtfully through his previous role contributed already greatly to our success today. Going forward, it is a great pleasure and honor to have him as one of the Gpixel team members to further extend our pixel and technology portfolio by leveraging his world class technical leadership and expertise.”

Assaf Lahav adds: “It is a pleasure starting my new journey with such an amazing team. Over the years I watched  Gpixel grow from 3 engineers to more than 200 people working from 4 offices worldwide. Product after product,Gpixel changed the specialized CIS landscape drastically, ever pushing the limits of the current state of-the-art. I hope my future contribution will help the Gpixel engineering team to become even stronger than today and feel truly privileged to be given the opportunity to guide this company into the next chapters of its exciting journey.”

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University of Colorado Boulder Achieves ToF Sensing with 26um Depth Accuracy

August 25, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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CU Boulder publishes an OSA Optica paper "Time-magnified photon counting with 550-fs resolution" by Bowen Li, Jan Bartos, Yijun Xie, and Shu-Wei Huang.

"Time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) is an enabling technology for applications such as low-light fluorescence lifetime microscopy and photon counting time-of-flight (ToF) 3D imaging. However, state-of-the-art TCSPC single-photon timing resolution (SPTR) is limited to 3–100 ps by single-photon detectors. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a time-magnified TCSPC (TM-TCSPC) that achieves an ultrashort SPTR of 550 fs with an off-the-shelf single-photon detector. The TM-TCSPC can resolve ultrashort pulses with a 130-fs pulse width difference at a 22-fs accuracy. When applied to photon counting ToF 3D imaging, the TM-TCSPC greatly suppresses the range walk error that limits all photon counting ToF 3D imaging systems by 99.2% and thus provides high depth accuracy and precision of 26 µm and 3 µm, respectively."

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Ouster CEO Believes that Only 3 to 5 LiDAR Companies Remain in 5 Years from Now

August 25, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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Bloomberg reports that Ouster that went public after merging with a SPAC, is in advanced talks to acquire a flash LiDAR startup Sense Photonics.

UKTodayNews quotes Ouster CEO Angus Pacala saying only three to five lidar companies will remain in five years.

Sam Abuelsamid, principal research analyst at Guidehouse Insights, wonder if there’s enough room for the dozens of competitors vying for contracts.

Yole Developpement quotes CEO of XenomatiX Filip Geuens saying that it is now the time for convergence and consolidation in LiDARs: "After a period of intense technology exploration, a time of convergence and consolidation has started. It is becoming more clear which solutions will prevail.

Now it’s a matter of industrializing and letting mature the solutions that have survived the experimental phase."

CNBC: Kyle Vogt, the co-founder and president of Cruise, General Motors’ majority-owned autonomous vehicle subsidiary, is predicting a consolidation/collapse of the lidar industry, specifically regarding companies that have gone public or plan to do so through deals with blank check companies.

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Coherent ToF Imager with 250um Depth Resolution

August 24, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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Caltech publishes an arxiv.org paper "IQ Photonic Receiver for Coherent Imaging with a Scalable Aperture" by Aroutin Khachaturian, Reza Fatemi, Ali Hajimiri.

Silicon photonics (SiP) integrated coherent image sensors offer higher sensitivity and improved range-resolution-product compared to direct detection image sensors such as CCD and CMOS devices. Previous generation of SiP coherent imagers suffer from relative optical phase fluctuations between the signal and reference paths, which results in random phase and amplitude fluctuations in the output signal. This limitation negatively impacts the SNR and signal acquisition times. Here we present a coherent imager system that suppresses the optical carrier signal and removes non-idealities from the relative optical path using a photonic in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) receiver via a 90∘ hybrid detector. Furthermore, we incorporate row-column read-out and row-column addressing schemes to address the electro-optical interconnect density challenge. Our novel row-column read-out architecture for the sensor array requires only 2N interconnects for N2 sensors. An 8×8 IQ sensor array is presented as a proof-of-concept demonstration with 1.2×10−5 resolution over range accuracy. Free-space FMCW ranging with 250um resolution at 1m distance has been demonstrated using this sensor array.

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Fight of Velodyne with its Founder Continues

August 24, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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BusinessWire: David Hall, the founder and the largest common stock holder of Velodyne Lidar, Inc. publishes another open letter to the Company’s Board of Directors:

Members of the Board,

I am pleased that following my calls for meaningful leadership changes at Velodyne Lidar, Dr. Anand Gopalan decided to resign as Chief Executive Officer and a director. Though I believe this represents a first step in the right direction, the root of poor business management and the anti-stockholder culture at Velodyne Lidar remains. This is why today, I am calling on Chairman Michael Dee and director Hamid Zarringhalam to resign from the Board. I believe that both of these individuals have breached stockholders’ confidence and destroyed significant value in the Company.

Since being installed on the Board via a merger with Graf Industrial, a special purpose acquisition company (“SPAC”), Mr. Dee has spearheaded major business decisions that leave him responsible for the Company’s nearly 80% stock price decline, in my view. Despite this poor performance and Mr. Dee’s lack of relevant skillsets or public company board experience, the Board recently elevated Mr. Dee to the position of Chairman.

In addition to Mr. Dee’s lack of relevant skillsets to serve on the Board, stockholders should be aware that he is currently deeply embroiled in litigation at PureCycle Technologies, Inc., relating to his role as Chief Financial Officer following its merger with a SPAC with disastrous results. Mr. Dee is facing serious accusations of misleading investors and fraud.

Beyond his unsettling track record, I am deeply concerned that Mr. Dee and the Board are considering transferring Velodyne Lidar’s sophisticated Alpha Prime lidar manufacturing know-how and associated trade secrets, the crown jewels of the Company’s IP portfolio, to Nikon, which is moving into the lidar space with, among other things, its recent partnership with Aeva, a Silicon Valley startup founded to develop lidar technology. I question how moving the best of the Company’s portfolio of technology to Nikon benefits Velodyne’s stockholders whatsoever. It seems as if this move greatly benefits director Hamid Zarringhalam, an executive employee of Nikon, who is acting within a disabling conflict of interest in making decisions that seemingly benefit Nikon, when he should be focused on what is best for Velodyne Lidar and its stockholders.

We are aware that during a recent conversation discussing the decline in Velodyne Lidar’s valuation, Mr. Zarringhalam commented, “I don’t care about the stock decline because I don’t own any.” This statement reveals a complete lack of professionalism and alignment with stockholders. Clearly, the Company is in serious need of ethical directors with public company and high growth tech experience to help turn around the anti-stockholder culture that pervades the current Board.

Update: BusinessWire: Velodyne responds on David Hall open letter:

David Hall is Attempting to Divert Attention from the Ongoing Arbitration Regarding his Theft of Confidential Intellectual Property

The Company believes that Mr. Hall’s actions are an attempt to distract from the serious and ongoing arbitration against Mr. Hall regarding his theft of Velodyne’s confidential, trade secret information. Mr. Hall has never denied taking this confidential, trade secret information, which he seems intent upon using to further his personal business ventures to the detriment of Velodyne and its stockholders.

Like any enterprise with a focus on innovative, breakthrough technologies, Velodyne is committed to protecting its intellectual property. The Company will take any and all actions to ensure Mr. Hall complies with his legal obligations to refrain from any use or disclosure of Velodyne’s property and to immediately return it to Velodyne. The Company views Mr. Hall’s latest missive as an attempt to divert attention from Velodyne’s upcoming proceeding against him, where an initial procedural hearing is set for September 2, 2021.

David Hall Falsely Portrays the Trusted Long-standing Relationship Between Velodyne Lidar and Nikon

The Company’s relationship with Nikon dates back to 2018, when Mr. Hall served as Chief Executive Officer of Velodyne. As part of its long-standing relationship with Velodyne, Nikon has also been a strategic investor in the Company. Today, the Company continues to have a strong partnership with Nikon as a trusted technology and manufacturing partner for Velodyne’s industry-leading lidar sensor.

Michael Dee and Hamid Zarringhalam are Aligned with Velodyne Lidar Stockholders

Michael Dee and Hamid Zarringhalam are independent directors focused on the long-term success of the Company, who have exceptional track records of success as business leaders and have served as outstanding stewards of Velodyne and its stockholders.

Mr. Hall’s fabricated statements about Mr. Zarringhalam are demonstrably false and libelous. Mr. Zarringhalam never made the comments Mr. Hall claimed, and is in fact a stockholder of the Company, having purchased stock using his own personal funds. Mr. Zarringhalam remains a stockholder today and his interests are aligned with those of all stockholders.

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Filed Under: Photo News, Photography, Sensor News

New Videos: Omnivision, ST, Glasgow and Heriot-Watt Universities, Robosense, Immervision

August 24, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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Omnivision publishes a continuation of interview with its CTO Boyd Fowler:


ST shows how its VD6283 ambient light sensor senses light flicker and helps to avoid image banding:


Centre for Quantum Technology University of Glasgow and Heriot-Watt University present their work on Ge-on-Si SPAD pixels for SWIR LiDARs:


Robosense starts mass production of its solid state automotive LiDAR:


Immervision presents the new possibilities of its freeform optics:

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ON Semi Global Shutter Sensor Wins Most Innovative Value Product Award

August 23, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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ON Semi global shutter AR0234CS 2.3 MP CMOS sensor has won a Most Innovative Value Product Award from the 2021 China AI Outstanding Innovation Awards program. The selection criteria for all nominated products include online voting and expert review.

The AR0234CS is 1080p 120fps sensor with 3um pixels, HDR support, and MIPI and parallel interfaces.

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Polaroid Now Keith Haring review

August 23, 2021 By Leave a Comment

Cameralabs        Go to the original article...

The Polaroid Now is an instant camera that delivers large square prints with minimal effort. It’s available in a variety of finishes including a Keith Haring edition adorned with the pop artist’s iconic graphics. Find out how it compares to Polaroid Go and Fujifilm’s INSTAX in my review!…

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Filed Under: Camer Labs, Photo News, Photography Tagged With:

Renesas Updates its 8MP Sensor Lineup

August 23, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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Renesas publishes the datasheets of its updated 8MP sensors for security cameras: RAA462113FYL#AC1 (base model) and RAA462113FYL#AC2 (same with added PDAF). The datasheets are fairly detailed and even describe the allowed pixel array defects:

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Omnivision Improves its Gross Margin to 31.37%

August 22, 2021 By Leave a Comment

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BlueChipCorporateReview quotes some data from Will Semiconductor quarterly report:
  • Omnivision's business accounts for 74% of Will Semi revenue
  • Omnivision and Superpix subsidiaries account for 77% of the total Will Semi revenue
  • CMOS sensors gross profit margin have risen to 31.37% in 2021
  • The cost structure of the company's CMOS image sensor:
    55.09% - wafer cost
    6.01% - color filters
    10.19% - packaging and testing
    1.4% - other expenses
    This does not add up to 100%. Not sure why.
  • Camera module cost structure:
    52% - image sensor
    20% - lens
    19% - module packaging
    6% - motors
    3% - IR filter

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Filed Under: Photo News, Photography, Sensor News
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