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Counterpoint Research says that iPhone 12 cameras cost $3.6 less than iPhone 11's:
ToF News: Chronoptics, Opnous, Microsoft
January 15, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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Chronoptics announces its ToF noise filter and ToF camera based on Melexis VGA sensor:
Opnous OPNM8518A VGA camera module consumes 500mW typ and has a range of 1.2m:
MDPI paper "Evaluation of the Azure Kinect and Its Comparison to Kinect V1 and Kinect V2" by Michal Tölgyessy, Martin Dekan, Ľuboš Chovanec, and Peter Hubinský from Institute of Robotics and Cybernetics, Slovakia shows Microsoft progress over the years.
"The Azure Kinect is the successor of Kinect v1 and Kinect v2. In this paper we perform brief data analysis and comparison of all Kinect versions with focus on precision (repeatability) and various aspects of noise of these three sensors. Then we thoroughly evaluate the new Azure Kinect; namely its warm-up time, precision (and sources of its variability), accuracy (thoroughly, using a robotic arm), reflectivity (using 18 different materials), and the multipath and flying pixel phenomenon. Furthermore, we validate its performance in both indoor and outdoor environments, including direct and indirect sun conditions. We conclude with a discussion on its improvements in the context of the evolution of the Kinect sensor. It was shown that it is crucial to choose well designed experiments to measure accuracy, since the RGB and depth camera are not aligned. Our measurements confirm the officially stated values, namely standard deviation ≤17 mm, and distance error <11 mm in up to 3.5 m distance from the sensor in all four supported modes. The device, however, has to be warmed up for at least 40–50 min to give stable results. Due to the time-of-flight technology, the Azure Kinect cannot be reliably used in direct sunlight. Therefore, it is convenient mostly for indoor applications."
Samsung Adds 4th Sensor to its 108MP Lineup
January 14, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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BusinessWire: Samsung introduces its latest 108MP mobile sensor, the 0.8um 1/1.33-inch ISOCELL HM3. This is the 4th 108MP sensor in the company's lineup after HMX, HM1, and HM2.“Samsung has been at the forefront of bringing the most pixels to mobile image sensors as well as various supporting technologies that take sensor performances to the next level,” says Duckhyun Chang, EVP of the sensor business at Samsung Electronics. “The ISOCELL HM3 is the culmination of Samsung’s latest sensor technologies that will help deliver premium mobile experiences to today’s smart-device users.”
For faster AF, the HM3 integrates an improved Super PD Plus feature. Super PD Plus adds AF-optimized micro-lenses over the phase detection focusing agents, increasing measurement accuracy of the agents by 50%.
The HM3 also adopts Smart ISO Pro, HDR technology which uses an intra-scene dual conversion gain (iDCG) solution. Smart ISO Pro simultaneously captures a frame in both high and low ISO, then merges them into a single image in 12-bit color depth and with reduced noise. As Smart ISO Pro does not require multiple exposure shots to create a standard HDR image, it can significantly reduce motion-artifacts. In addition, with a low-noise mode, it improves the light sensitivity by 50% over its predecessor.
The HM3’s pixel layout is arranged in three-by-three single color structures suitable for nine-pixel binning. By merging nine neighboring pixels, the 108Mp HM3 mimics a 12Mp image sensor with large 2.4μm-pixels. With an improved binning hardware IP, the HM3 supports seamless transitions between 108MP and 12MP resolutions.
Design of the new sensor has also been optimized to reduce power in preview mode by 6.5%.
Samsung ISOCELL HM3 is currently in mass production.
CES News: Intel Demos Realsense ID and MEMS LiDAR
January 14, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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Intel posted two videos with demos of its recently announced Realsense ID and L515 MEMS LiDAR:CES News: Trieye, Orbbeck, Guide Sensmart, Sense Photonics, Innolux, Nuralogix, Opsys, Pioneer, Ibeo
January 14, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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Trieye presents the recent progress with its low-cost SWIR sensor, including DMS application:
Orbbec presents its first ToF camera with VGA resolution:
Wuhan Guide Sensmart Tech Co, a subsidiary of Guide Infrared, presents its compact thermal imaging modules for smartphones:
Sense Photonics presents its flash LiDAR components:
Innolux presents its under-display camera design and full-screen optical fingerprint sensor:
Nuralogix presents Anura applications claiming to be able to measure blood pressure with a smartphone selfie camera:
Opsys presents its modular LiDAR architecture:
Pioneer presents its MEMS-based LiDAR:
Ibeo presents its sequential flash LiDAR:
MIPI A-PHY Gears
January 13, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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MIPI publishes an article talking about the A-PHY standard gears. The scaling is quite impressive: speeds up to 16Gbps per lane with PAM4, 8, and 16(!) modulation schemes. The symbol rate stays at 4Gs/s, apparently limited by the long physical link bandwidth:
Sony FE 35mm f1.4 GM review
January 13, 2021 By Leave a Comment
The FE 35mm f1.4 G Master is a high-end wide-angle prime lens for Sony’s e-mount mirrorless system and one that’s corrected for full-frame bodies. It’s Sony’s fourth 35 in the native e-mount, but the first to join the flagship G-Master series. Find out why it’s their best 35 yet in my full review!…
CES News: NII, AIStorm, Innovusion, Brightway, Mcnex
January 13, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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Japan National Institute of Informatics provides a protection from fingerprint recognition from camera images:
AIStorm presents its sensors without saying much about the underlying technology:
BrightWay Vision presents its VISDOM automotive gated vision camera performance:
"Independent tests performed under the DENSE European Research project evaluated the performance of the various available optical sensing technologies, including visual cameras, thermal imagers, and LiDARs, under adverse weather conditions. The project team concluded that the GatedVision sensor is the only one that could see all the tested targets, through dense fog and throughout the entire range tested. All other sensors were found limited to only half the range and limited types of objects detected."
Mcnex presents a scanning automotive camera:
A Conversation with Eric Fossum
January 12, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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Youtube channel Reliability Matters publishes "Episode 59: A Conversation with CMOS Image Sensor Inventor Dr. Eric Fossum."Omnivision Unveils 1080p60 Sensor for Mainstream Security Cameras
January 12, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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BusinessWire: OmniVision announces the OS02H10, a 2.9um, 1080p image sensor adding the NIR and low light performance of its Nyxel and PureCel Plus technologies to mainstream surveillance cameras. This sensor also offers multiple HDR options at 60 fps. Additionally, when paired with the designer’s selected platform, the OS02H10 can enable a system ultra low power mode for battery-powered cameras with AI functionality.“Mainstream surveillance camera designers are looking for the ideal the combination of low power consumption and high performance over a wide range of lighting conditions, to enable AI algorithm recognition of faces and objects,” said Cheney Zhang, senior marketing manager for the security segment at OmniVision. “The OS02H10 provides a high value option for adding premium NIR, ultra low light and HDR performance to high volume, mainstream security systems with AI functionality, along with an ultra low power mode that consumes 97.7% less power than the normal mode to support long battery life.”
Samples of the OS02H10 image sensor are available now.
ToF Sensor with Delta-Sigma Feedback
January 12, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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MDPI paper "High-Linearity High-Resolution Time-of-Flight Linear-Array Digital Image Sensor Using Time-Domain Feedback" by Juyeong Kim, Keita Yasutomi, Keiichiro Kagawa, and Shoji Kawahito from Shizuoka University, Japan, presents a sigma-delta feedback approach to linearize a ToF sensor response:
"This paper presents a high-linearity high-resolution time-of-flight (ToF) linear-array digital image sensor using a time-domain negative feedback technique. A coarse ToF measurement loop uses a 5-bit digital-to-time converter (DTC) and a delayed gating-pulse generator for time-domain feedback to find the zero of the difference between ToF and the digital estimate of the gating-pulse delay while maintaining a constant operating point of the analog readout circuits. A fine ToF measurement uses a delta-sigma modulation (DSM) loop using the time-domain feedback with a bit-stream signal form. Because of the self-contained property of the DSM for low distortion and noise exploited by the oversampling signal processing, the proposed technique provides high-linearity and high-range resolution in the fine ToF measurement. A prototype ToF sensor of 16.8 × 16.8 μm2 two-tap pixels and fabricated in a 0.11 μm (1P4M) CMOS image sensors (CIS) process achieves +0.9%/−0.47% maximum nonlinearity error and a resolution of 0.24 mm (median) for the measurement range of 0–1.05 m. The ToF sensor produces an 11-bit fully digital output with a ToF measurement time of 22.4 ms."
AI Sensor with In-Pixel Charge Domain Processing
January 12, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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Arxiv.org paper "An Ultra Fast Low Power Convolutional Neural Network Image Sensor with Pixel-level Computing" by Ruibing Song, Kejie Huang, Zongsheng Wang, Haibin Shen from Zhejiang University, China, is also published in IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems in December 2020.
"The separation of the data capture and analysis in modern vision systems has led to a massive amount of data transfer between the end devices and cloud computers, resulting in long latency, slow response, and high power consumption. Efficient hardware architectures are under focused development to enable Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the resource-limited end sensing devices. This paper proposes a Processing-In-Pixel (PIP) CMOS sensor architecture, which allows convolution operation before the column readout circuit to significantly improve the image reading speed with much lower power consumption. The simulation results show that the proposed architecture enables convolution operation (kernel size=3*3, stride=2, input channel=3, output channel=64) in a 1080P image sensor array with only 22.62 mW power consumption. In other words, the computational efficiency is 4.75 TOPS/w, which is about 3.6 times as higher as the state-of-the-art."
CES News: Intel Shows its FMCW LiDAR
January 12, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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BusinessWire: Intel-Mobileye CTO Amnon Shashua shows the company FMCW LiDAR named EyeC. Its mass production is expected to start in 2025:"Shashua also will explain how Intel’s specialized silicon photonics fab is able to put active and passive laser elements on a silicon chip. “This is really game-changing,” Shashua said of the lidar SoC expected in 2025. “And we call this a photonic integrated circuit, PIC. It has 184 vertical lines, and then those vertical lines are moved through optics. Having fabs that are able to do that, that's very, very rare. So this gives Intel a significant advantage in building these lidars.”
CES News: Intel Shows its FMCW LiDAR
January 12, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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BusinessWire: Intel-Mobileye CTO Amnon Shashua shows the company FMCW LiDAR named EyeC. Its mass production is expected to start in 2025:"Shashua also will explain how Intel’s specialized silicon photonics fab is able to put active and passive laser elements on a silicon chip. “This is really game-changing,” Shashua said of the lidar SoC expected in 2025. “And we call this a photonic integrated circuit, PIC. It has 184 vertical lines, and then those vertical lines are moved through optics. Having fabs that are able to do that, that's very, very rare. So this gives Intel a significant advantage in building these lidars.”
CES News: Intel Shows its FMCW LiDAR
January 12, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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BusinessWire: Intel-Mobileye CTO Amnon Shashua shows the company FMCW LiDAR named EyeC. Its mass production is expected to start in 2025:"Shashua also will explain how Intel’s specialized silicon photonics fab is able to put active and passive laser elements on a silicon chip. “This is really game-changing,” Shashua said of the lidar SoC expected in 2025. “And we call this a photonic integrated circuit, PIC. It has 184 vertical lines, and then those vertical lines are moved through optics. Having fabs that are able to do that, that's very, very rare. So this gives Intel a significant advantage in building these lidars.”
Update: Intel has publishes the CES talk on Youtube.
Omnivision Unveils 3MP Automotive Sensor
January 11, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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BusinessWire: OmniVision announced the OX03F10 automotive sensor. This sensor expands OmniVision’s ASIL-C viewing camera family with higher 3MP resolution and cybersecurity features that are required as vehicle designers make the transition from Level 2 and 3 ADAS to higher levels of autonomy. The OX03F10 also maintains the family’s unique combination of a large 3.0um pixel with a HDR of 140dB and LED flicker mitigation. The sensor is offered in a 1/2.44” optical format and features a 4-lane MIPI CSI-2 interface.
“In addition to excellent image quality across all lighting conditions, higher resolution and cybersecurity are becoming must haves for the designers of viewing cameras—particularly for SVS,” said Kavitha Ramane, staff automotive product marketing manager at OmniVision. “Our new OX03F10 maintains OmniVision’s unique combination of the industry’s top HDR and LFM capabilities over the entire automotive temperature range, along with ASIL-C functional safety and the best low light performance, while adding the 3MP resolution and cybersecurity features that are required as designers begin to integrate viewing cameras into autonomous vehicle systems.”
This new OX03F10 image sensor is available now for limited sampling in a-CSP and a-BGA packages, and is planned to be AEC-Q100 Grade 2 certified.
Omdia: Samsung Increases its CIS Prices by 40%
January 11, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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IFNews quotes Omdia reports that 5MP and 8M CIS for low-end and mid-range smartphones are in short supply now. As a result, Samsung has increased the prices by 40% starting December 2020, while other CIS suppliers have increased their prices by ~20%.Omdia has also compiled a table with CIS wafer capacities for the major image sensor companies and foundries:
Omdia publishes its forecast for smartphone cameras. The 3D cameras volume is projected to exceed 325M in 2023 (both front and rear):
Smartsens Announces 9MP APS-C Sensor with 3D Stacked Voltage Domain Global Shutter
January 10, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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Smartsens launches a 9MP Global Shutter sensor product for Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) applications, the SC910GS. Also, the previously launched 4MP SC410GS targets the same market.Ma Weijian, Smartsens COO, says (in Google automatic translation): "Due to the complexity of pixel structure and process, Global Shutter, especially the large-format Global Shutter technology, is more challenging to design, so in the past it was mainly monopolized by foreign technology.
Smartsens innovative use of Voltage Domain SmartGS technology has realized the development and mass production of the industry’s first BSI/3D stack BSI Global Shutter image sensor. With the first-generation SmartGS technology, breakthroughs in sensitivity, wide dynamics, and short exposure time control have been achieved. Based on the first-generation Global Shutter’s successful products, Smartsens has now become the leader in global Shutter CIS shipments.
The SC910GS and SC410GS released this time are based on the second-generation SmartGS technology is a breakthrough product for high-end applications. It is another successful breakthrough for domestic companies in the field of large-size and large-resolution Global Shutter chips. It strives to reduce light pollution, empower all-weather applications and intelligent upgrade applications for intelligent transportation applications. A weapon!
In addition, SmartGS' third-generation SmartGS technology is also under development, and its sensitivity, noise optimization and wide dynamic performance will be further improved. I look forward to seeing you with this technology this year!"
Both SC910GS and SC410GS are sampling now.
Another Smartsens' presentation talks about automotive sensors market and the company's HDR with LED Flicker Suppression (LFS) solution:
Yole Webcast on Rise of Thermal Imaging Market
January 9, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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Yole Developpement publishes its webcast "Thermal imaging: The rise of fever detection – global market applications and evolution" held on Dec. 8, 2020."The Yole Group of Companies joins together the powers of its member companies for the first time to deliver a complete view on the global thermal imaging market and focus on the technology of Chinese players."
Image Sensor Noise Tutorial
January 8, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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Richard Crisp, VP of New Product Development for Etron, continues his image sensor tutorial series. The part 5 title is "Eliminate noise sources in CMOS image sensor designs:"
The following actions can be taken to minimize the noise:Dark noise components can be reduced by:
- Reducing exposure time
- Reducing operating temperature of sensor
- Dark fixed pattern noise for non-saturated pixels can be removed by dark subtraction a.k.a. despiking. It involves subtracting a dark frame from the image frame, pixel by pixel.
- Fixed pattern noise can be removed via a process called flat fielding. The process involves dividing the image frame by a pixel calibration image frame on a pixel-by-pixel basis. The calibration frame is simply a high SNR image of a uniformly illuminated featureless background taken using a focused optical system.
The only noise components that cannot be removed from an image with non-saturated pixels are the read noise, the image shot noise and the dark shot noise. If it is feasible to cool the sensor, the dark shot noise can be reduced to arbitrarily low levels so as to be a non-factor.
Emberion Productizes Graphene-based VGA SWIR Sensor
January 8, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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Emberion publishes a product page for its graphene-based VGA imager and camera:Very wide-spectrum VIS-SWIR Camera Core:
- Based on Emberion’s VGA-resolution VIS-SWIR image sensor: spectral response range spanning from 400 nm up to 2000 nm
- Fully functional camera core ready for vision system integration comprising implementations for sensor readout & control, AD conversion, calibration, image pre-processing, thermal control and power management
- Optimized readout modes: full VGA & selected ROIs
- A standard C-mount optical interface with one inch sensor form factor
- Potential applications include: machine vision, multispectral and hyperspectral imaging, night vision, medical, automotive, defense
Gigapixel X-Ray Camera
January 8, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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Arxiv.org paper "Billion-pixel X-ray camera (BiPC-X)" by Zhehui Wang, Kaitlin Anagnost, Cris W. Barnes, D. M. Dattelbaum, Eric R. Fossum, Eldred Lee, Jifeng Liu, J. J. Ma, W. Z. Meijer, Wanyi Nie, C. M. Sweeney, Audrey C. Therrien, Hsinhan Tsai, and Xin Que from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Dartmouth College, Gigajot, and Universit´e de Sherbrooke presents a 21MP tiled prototype:"The continuing improvement in quantum efficiency (above 90% for single visible photons), reduction in noise (below 1 electron per pixel), and shrink in pixel pitch (less than 1 micron) motivate billion-pixel X-ray cameras (BiPC-X) based on commercial CMOS imaging sensors. We describe BiPC-X designs and prototype construction based on flexible tiling of commercial CMOS imaging sensors with millions of pixels. Device models are given for direct detection of low energy X-rays (< 10 keV) and indirect detection of higher energies using scintillators. Modified Birks's law is proposed for light-yield nonproportionality in scintillators as a function of X-ray energy. Single X-ray sensitivity and spatial resolution have been validated experimentally using laboratory X-ray source and the Argonne Advanced Photon Source. Possible applications include wide field-of-view (FOV) or large X-ray aperture measurements in high-temperature plasmas, the state-of-the-art synchrotron, X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL), and pulsed power facilities."
Intel Announces RealSense ID
January 7, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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Intel unveils Realsense ID 3D camera F450 based on active stereo approach:
LiDAR News: Livox, Aeva, Sense, Fraunhofer, Xilinx
January 7, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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BusinessWire: Xpeng, a Chinese electric vehicle company, is to deploy Livox automotive-grade lidar technology in Xpeng’s new production model in 2021. Livox is Xpeng’s first partner in lidar technology.
Livox is enhancing the detection range of its Horiz sensor to 150m (for objects at 10% reflectivity), enabling Xpeng’s XPILOT system to easily detect any remote obstacle while on highways and urban roads. Livox’s customized solution for Xpeng also includes a new “ultra FPS” lidar technology concept. Through a cleverly designed rotating-mirror technology, the objects within the lidar’s ROI will acquire a 20Hz point cloud data when the whole system is working at a frame rate of 10Hz. The new ROI point cloud density is hence increased to 144 lines equivalent at 0.1 second without the need for extra laser transmitters. The increased point cloud density enables the faster detection of tiny objects on the road surface, including pedestrians, bicycles or even traffic cones. The horizontal FOV of Horiz has also reached 120°. This greatly enhances the smart driving experience by resolving many persistent challenges faced by drivers, including the removal of blind spots against cut-in vehicles.
PRNewswire: Aeva and InterPrivate SPAC announce that Sylebra Capital (Hong Kong) invests $200M on top of the investment in the merger deal between Aeva and InterPrivate. The combined proceeds from this financing, the previously announced private placement, and InterPrivate's cash in trust are now expected to exceed $560M.
PRNewswire: Sense Photonics announces that it has achieved an industry-first by successfully demonstrating 200-meter detection with its proprietary global shutter flash LiDAR system.
The Sense system uses proprietary emitter and SPAD sensor technologies. Sense Silicon, a BSI SPAD device with more than 140,000 pixels, is designed to work seamlessly with the Sense Illuminator, a distributed 940nm laser array of more than 15,000 VCSELs. Together, they are the core building blocks of Sense's camera-like architecture enabling the first high-resolution, eye-safe, global shutter flash LiDAR that can detect 10% reflective targets at 200 meters range in full sunlight outputting tens of millions of points per second. Global shutter acquisition sets a new standard in the long-range LiDAR industry by removing the need for complex motion blur correction while allowing pixel-level, frame-by-frame fusion with RGB camera data.
Sense Photonics says that "Our core technology of VCSELs and SPADs can be paired with different lenses and diffusers to create short-range and long-range products of various FOV and resolutions. We can go as wide as 180 x 90 FOV with uniform angular resolution that exceeds 0.4 degrees for short-range needs or we can go as narrow as 15 x 7.5 to achieve uniform angular resolution of 0.025 degrees for mid or long-range needs. The inherent architecture flexibility enables us to deliver on a broad range of automotive applications. More to come in a forthcoming announcement."
"We have delivered what industry experts thought was impossible due to our 940nm wavelength, and have created a revolutionary new architecture with the Sense Illuminator, Sense Silicon, and our state-of-the-art signal processing pipeline to miniaturize the data output," said Hod Finkelstein, CTO, Sense Photonics. "Our LiDAR systems will solve the shortcomings that OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, and Robotaxi companies have been dealing with in competing LiDAR technologies."
Geared for mass-market automotive adoption, Sense uses mature manufacturing and cost-effective assembly processes used in today's consumer technology industries. Sense's flash architecture eliminates the need for fine alignment between emitter & receiver, maintaining sensor calibration and depth accuracy during shock and vibration. Additionally, the architecture is designed as a platform to allow for customer-specific product variations with a simple change in optics and the first to be able to provide both short- and long-range capabilities from the same architecture.
Customer evaluation systems are being finalized and will be available mid 2021 to meet current demand requirements, with start of production being planned for late 2024.
Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems in Dresden (IPMS) designs and manufactures MEMS mirrors for Aeye LiDAR:
"The MEMS scanner is made of monocrystalline silicon, a material with several advantages: it is not only robust and proof against material fatigue but it has a high temperature and shock resistance. The silicon has a reflective coating that intensifies the reflection of the light. Thanks to positioning technology integrated in the chip, it is possible to continuously track where the mirror steers the laser beam and which position is being measured. This in turn enables correction to the point of operation."
SemiconductorEngineering publishes Xilinx promotional article saying that ZVision, Robosense, Baraja, Benewake, Blickfeld, Hesai, Innovusion, Opsys, OURS, Ouster, Phantom Intelligence, Pointcloud, SureStar, and many others use Xilinx platform for their LiDARs signal processing.
Omnivision Announces 40MP Sensor with 1.008um Pixel and Multi-Sampling CDS
January 7, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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BusinessWire: OmniVision announces the OV40A, a 40MP, 1.008um pixel sensor that features super high gain and de-noise technologies in the 1/1.7” optical format. This sensor also offers multiple HDR options and supports 1080p slow-motion and high-speed video captures at 240 fps with PDAF.
“TSR estimates there will be 855 million image sensors with 40MP or higher resolution shipped to smartphone manufacturers in 2021, which presents a huge opportunity for this new image sensor,” said James Liu, senior technical marketing manager at OmniVision. “The OV40A’s unique combination of features is bringing flagship-level performance to the main, wide, ultrawide and video cameras in this fast-growing market segment.”
The OV40A supports super high gain of up to 256x with embedded multi-sampling de-noise functionality for enhanced low-light performance. This sensor also offers HDR through selective conversion gain, along with 2- and 3-exposure staggered HDR timing.
Built on OmniVision’s PureCel Plus-S stacked die technology, the OV40A integrates an on-chip, 4-cell (4C) color filter array and hardware remosaic, which provides high quality, 40MP Bayer output in real time. For low-light conditions, this sensor can use near-pixel binning to output a 10MP image, as well as 4K2K and 1080p video, with four times the sensitivity, yielding 2.0um pixel-equivalent low-light performance.
Output formats include 40MP at 30 fps, 10MP with 4C binning at 120 fps, 4K2K video at 60 fps and 1080p video at 240 fps. All of these formats can be captured with PDAF. Other features include a CPHY interface, multi-camera sync and a 34.7 degree CRA.
Samples of the new OV40A image sensor are available now.
sCMOS Sensors Stand-Off
January 6, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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Arxiv.org paper "Evaluation of scientific CMOS sensors for sky survey applications" by Sergey Karpov, Armelle Bajat, Asen Christov, Michael Prouza, and Grigory Beskin from Institute of Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic, and cKazan Federal University, Kazan, Russia compares BAE-Fairchild Imaging sCMOS sensor with Gpixel's:"Scientific CMOS image sensors are a modern alternative for a typical CCD detectors, as they offer both low read-out noise, large sensitive area, and high frame rates. All these makes them promising devices for a modern wide-field sky surveys. However, the peculiarities of CMOS technology have to be properly taken into account when analyzing the data. In order to characterize these, we performed an extensive laboratory testing of two Andor cameras based on sCMOS chips -- Andor Neo and Andor Marana. Here we report its results, especially on the temporal stability, linearity and image persistence."
"...we may safely conclude that Andor Marana sCMOS is indeed a very promising camera for a sky survey applications, especially requiring high temporal resolution, and exceeds Andor Neo in nearly all aspects of it."
Omnivision Presents 1.998um NIR-enhanced Pixel and Sensor
January 6, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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BusinessWire: OmniVision announces the OS04C10, a 1.998um pixel, 4 MP sensor for both IoT and home security cameras.
“AI-enabled IoT and home security cameras require excellent performance across all lighting conditions for accurate algorithm detection of faces, license plates and other items. Additionally, these cameras are often battery-powered,” said Cheney Zhang, senior marketing manager for the security segment at OmniVision. “The OS04C10 maintains the same high 4MP resolution as our popular OV4689 sensor, while adding improved NIR, ultra low light and HDR performance for these IoT and home security cameras, along with a new ultra low power mode that consumes 98.9% less power than the normal mode for longer battery life.”
The sensor features NIR responce-enhancing Nyxel technology and 2-exposure HDR.
Best vegetarian meals
January 6, 2021 By Leave a Comment
I love cooking and wanted to increase the number of vegetarian dishes for everyday family meals. Here are my favourites: quick, easy and very tasty!…
Omnivision Unveils 32MP Sensor with 0.702um Pixels for Selfies
January 5, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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BusinessWire: OmniVision announces the OV32B sensor, featuring a 0.702um pixel to provide 32 MP resolution in a 1/3” optical format. The OV32B also supports 2- and 3-exposure HDR timing for up to 8MP video modes and still previews. It features a 4-cell color filter array and on-chip hardware re-mosaic, which provides high quality, 32 MP Bayer output in real time—a feature that can be challenging for competitors to achieve in the 1/3” optical format.
“In 2021, TSR estimates there will be 244 million image sensors with 32 MP resolution shipped to smartphone manufacturers for use in selfie cameras,” said Arun Jayaseelan, staff marketing manager at OmniVision. “The OV32B strikes the perfect balance between small size and high resolution that the designers of these cameras are looking for.”
To boost autofocus accuracy, especially in low light, this sensor offers the option to integrate type-2, 2x2 microlens phase detection autofocus (ML-PDAF). It also provides a CPHY interface for greater throughput using fewer pins, as well as a DPHY interface. Output formats include 32 MP at 15 fps, 8 MP at 60 fps and 6 MP (16:9) at 90 fps—all with 4-cell binning. Additionally, the sensor can output 1080p video at 120 fps, 1.5 MP captures (16:9) at 240 fps and 720p video at 360 fps.
Samples of the OV32B image sensor are available now.
Teledyne to Acquire FLIR for $8B
January 5, 2021 By Leave a Comment
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Teledyne and FLIR jointly announce that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Teledyne will acquire FLIR in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $8.0 billion.
“At the core of both our companies is proprietary sensor technologies. Our business models are also similar: we each provide sensors, cameras and sensor systems to our customers. However, our technologies and products are uniquely complementary with minimal overlap, having imaging sensors based on different semiconductor technologies for different wavelengths,” said Robert Mehrabian, Executive Chairman of Teledyne. “For two decades, Teledyne has demonstrated its ability to compound earnings and cash flow consistently and predictably. Together with FLIR and an optimized capital structure, I am confident we shall continue delivering superior returns to our stockholders.”
