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GlobeNewswire: TowerJazz releases its advanced 65nm stacked BSI hybrid bonding technology manufactured in Company’s 300mm facility in Uozu, Japan. This new offering, implemented in pixel level, enables a reduced pixel size along with enhanced performance by splitting the pixel IC functionality between two wafers. With a pitch smaller than 4µm, sensors manufactured with this technology provide higher data rate, lower power consumption, better performance, and smaller form factor, accurately meeting the innovative requirements of world-leading growing markets and applications including automotive, high-end photography, event-driven sensors and ToF, among others.

“We are very pleased to announce this new and highly advanced offering, providing our customers with extensive technological solutions which enable them to competitively lead in their markets,” said Avi Strum, SVP and GM of the Sensor Business Unit at TowerJazz. “As always, we are greatly committed to bring to market the most advanced technology and state-of-the-art pixel performance providing strategic, value-add development opportunities and roadmap.”

With pixel functionality split between wafers, TowerJazz hybrid BSI stacking, electrically connects each of the PD in the imaging top wafer to the pixel circuit in the bottom wafer. This new offering is an expansion of the Company’s CIS technology which includes stitching with 1D and 2D for large format sensors in the high-end photography, industrial and medical X-Ray markets, as well as advanced SPAD technology profoundly used in the rapidly growing automotive market with silicon proven pixels that can be customized to customer specifications.

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GlobeNewswire: TowerJazz releases its advanced 65nm stacked BSI hybrid bonding technology manufactured in Company’s 300mm facility in Uozu, Japan. This new offering, implemented in pixel level, enables a reduced pixel size along with enhanced performance by splitting the pixel IC functionality between two wafers. With a pitch smaller than 4µm, sensors manufactured with this technology provide higher data rate, lower power consumption, better performance, and smaller form factor, accurately meeting the innovative requirements of world-leading growing markets and applications including automotive, high-end photography, event-driven sensors and ToF, among others.

“We are very pleased to announce this new and highly advanced offering, providing our customers with extensive technological solutions which enable them to competitively lead in their markets,” said Avi Strum, SVP and GM of the Sensor Business Unit at TowerJazz. “As always, we are greatly committed to bring to market the most advanced technology and state-of-the-art pixel performance providing strategic, value-add development opportunities and roadmap.”

With pixel functionality split between wafers, TowerJazz hybrid BSI stacking, electrically connects each of the PD in the imaging top wafer to the pixel circuit in the bottom wafer. This new offering is an expansion of the Company’s CIS technology which includes stitching with 1D and 2D for large format sensors in the high-end photography, industrial and medical X-Ray markets, as well as advanced SPAD technology profoundly used in the rapidly growing automotive market with silicon proven pixels that can be customized to customer specifications.

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PRNewswire, EETimes: Prophesee introduces what it calls the first industry-standard packaged chip with Event-Based Vision technology, a significant advancement over traditional frame-based vision approaches.

Under development for five years and commercially tested, this third-generation version is a VGA sensor with 15 μm pixels in a 3/4" optical format. It is aimed at developers of cameras in industrial automation and IoT systems such as robots, inspection equipment, monitoring and surveillance devices. It leverages Prophesee's neuromorphic vision technology to offer efficient capabilities for a variety of use models, including ultra high-speed part counting, vibration measurement and monitoring or kinematic monitoring for predictive maintenance.

"This is a major milestone for Prophesee and underscores the progress in commercializing our pioneering Event-Based Vision sensing technology. After several years of testing and prototyping, we can now offer product developers an off-the-shelf means to take advantage of the benefits of our machine vision inventions that move the industry out of the traditional frame-based paradigm for image capture," said Luca Verre, co-founder and CEO of Prophesee.

In Prophesee Metavision sensor, each pixel is independent and asynchronous, only activating if it senses a change in the scene, a movement - an event. This proprietary Event-Based approach allows for major reductions of power, latency and data processing requirements imposed by traditional frame-based systems. It enables sensors to achieve much higher DR than commonly associated with high-speed vision. And it allows cost-efficient sensors and systems to record events that would otherwise require conventional cameras to run at 10,000 fps.

The chip is packaged in a 13x15 mm mini PBGA package and is manufactured in a 0.18um CIS process. The packaging was realized by Kingpak.

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ON Semi announces that it discontinues all its CCD products (also here.) The rumor says that the last reminder about Kodak image sensor business, the Rochester, NY, CCD fab will be closed on June 20, 2020 (confirmed from 3 independent sources.)

"The ongoing market conversion from CCD to CMOS image sensors has been accelerated both by an industry slowdown that began in 2018 as well as availability of advanced CMOS image sensors such as ON Semiconductor’s line of XGS products. In light of these factors, ON Semiconductor has been monitoring the sales activity and viability of our CCD image sensor products. The recent activity for the products on the attached device list has declined to a level which can no longer be sustained. As a result of this analysis we regret to announce discontinuance of our CCD products as described in this notification.

All CCD products are impacted by this change. The list of OPNs provided with this notification includes suggested replacement parts (where it was possible to identify a suitable replacement). In many cases, a call to ON Semiconductor Sales may be appropriate to discuss XGS CMOS image sensors in detail. For those devices that have no recommended replacement identified, ON Semiconductor has partnered with Rochester Electronics who will carry any remaining device inventory to potentially allow for a continued source after ON Semiconductor has completed its business process.

PLEASE NOTE: ON Semiconductor may implement minimum order quantities or dollar amounts based on inventories available. Also, Devices on this Product Discontinuance become NCNR (Non-Cancelable, Non-Returnable)."

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Fish and Richardson Litigation Blog publishes a summary of SiOnyx vs Hamamatsu Photonics (HPK) patent lawsuit:

"At trial, the jury found that the HPK willfully infringed SiOnyx’s U.S. Patent No. 8,080,467. The jury also found that HPK breached a non-disclosure agreement it had with SiOnyx, because “HPK took [SiOnyx’s] inventive ideas, added other inventive ideas to it, and obtained [nine] patents as a result.”

The jury awarded SiOnyx $796,469 in damages for breach of contract and $580,640 in damages for unjust enrichment. But, despite finding willful patent infringement, the jury awarded $0 in damages for patent infringement.

SiOnyx moved for “an injunction awarding [it] ownership of [HPK’s nine] patents….” The Court considered the jury’s finding that “HPK [] took confidential information SiOnyx had entrusted to it and used it for its own gain [by filing nine patents].” ....The Court thus granted an affirmative injunction “awarding and transferring ownership of [HPK’s nine] patents to SiOnyx[].”

The Court explained that “SiOnyx is a tiny company relying on a single type of technology, whereas HPK is a large company with a broad and diversified range of products.” Thus, the Court granted an injunction prohibiting HPK from “making, using, offering for sale, selling, or importing products infringing [SiOnyx’s] ’467 patent.”

HPK appealed this case to the Federal Circuit in late August, and that appeal is pending."

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Gpixel announces the GL0402, a 4096 x 2 resolution, 7um square pixel size, global shutter line scan image sensor with 200kHz line rate offering a cost effective solution for various in line inspection and sorting applications.

GL0402 offers a read noise of less than 5e- and full well charge of higher than 11k e-, resulting in 66dB intra-scene DR. DR and sensitivity can be further increased by utilizing on-chip 1x2 and 2x2 charge domain binning. Maximum line rate of 200kHz line rate in single line and 100kHz line rate in dual-line mode is achieved over 12 pairs of sub-LVDS high speed outputs allowing data rates up to 10.9Gbit/sec.

“We are pleased with this new GL0402 line scan sensor enabling our customers to develop next generation, cost effective in-line inspection systems,” commented Wim Wuyts, Chief Commercial Officer of Gpixel. “This new line scan product release also confirms our continued focus at line scan sensors developments which is an essential part of our fast-growing industrial inspection product portfolio.”

The sensor is assembled in a compact 76 pins CLCC and is offered in two chroma versions: the monochromatic sensor and RGB Bayer color. Samples are available by September 2019.

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BusinessWire: Samsung introduces the industry’s first 0.7μm pixel sensor, the 43.7MP ISOCELL Slim GH1.

“Samsung has been stepping up in pixel technology innovation from the industry’s first 1.0μm-pixel image sensor, to most recently, 0.8μm ultra-high-resolution sensors at 64Mp and 108Mp,” said Yongin Park, EVP of the sensor business at Samsung Electronics. “We are pleased to deliver yet another breakthrough with the industry’s first 0.7μm pixel image sensor, the ISOCELL Slim GH1 that will enable sleeker and more streamlined designs as well as excellent imaging experiences in tomorrow’s smartphones.”

ISOCELL Plus, Samsung’s latest pixel isolation technology, minimizes color cross-talk and optical loss in the 0.7μm pixel. In low-light environments, the GH1 makes use of pixel-merging Tetracell technology that enables higher light sensitivity equivalent to that of a 1.4μm-pixel image sensor.

For video recording at 4K (3,840×2,160) resolutions, the ISOCELL Slim GH1, with a high resolution of 7,968×5,480, is able to take 4K videos with minimum loss in FoV, while most high-resolution image sensors crop or scale down full image resolutions that result in a reduced FoV. Using Tetracell technology, the GH1 is converted down to 3,984×2,740 at 60fps.

GH1 supports a gyro-based EIS, a phase detection AF, and a real-time HDR. The ISOCELL Slim GH1 is expected to be in mass production by the end of this year.

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A team of researches from Institut für Mikroelektronik Stuttgart, Germany, has chosen quite an unusual place for its paper on HDR pixel - Advances in Radio Science Journal. The paper "Realization and opto-electronic Characterization of linear Self-Reset Pixel Cells for a high dynamic CMOS Image Sensor" by Stefan Hirsch, Markus Strobel, Wolfram Klingler, Jan Dirk Schulze Spüntrup, Zili Yu, and Joachim N. Burghartz "focuses on two topics: One is the realization and opto-electronic characterization of further self-reset pixel cells for an experimental optimization of the functionality with respect to linearity and high signal-to-noise ratio. The second one is the assembly and digital readout of a cluster structure composed of 16 × 16 pixel matrix on a CMOS test chip."

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Jinni.Tech publishes its investigation of who supplies RED camera sensors:



Thanks to ED for the pointer!

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There is a number of ToF startups in China. Opnous has been been mentioned here a couple of months ago. Apparently, the company has licensed Brookman (Japan) ToF sensor. A recent company presentation tells more about the company technology and differentiation:


Epticore Microelectronics is another startup in China developing ToF technology. The company's presentation shows its products and plans:

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IFNews: GF Securities report on CIS industry shows the next generation under-display fingerprint module that uses WLO to reduce thickness. GF Securities forecasts the ultra-thin screen fingerprint sensors shipments of 94M units in 2020, accounting for 7% of global smartphone shipments, respectively.

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Espros presentation at MEMS Consulting seminar in China gives interesting info on the company's long range solution for automotive LiDARs:

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TheElec reports that Sony ToF sensors inside LG Innotek modules will be used in Apple 2020 models of iPad and iPhone. Samsung Galaxy S10 5G and Galaxy Note 10+ use Sony ToF sensors too.

LG G8 ThinQ smartphones use ToF sensor from PMD-Infineon combined with ams VCSEL:

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Autosens Brussels announces its awards in several categories, some of them image sensing-related:

Most Exciting Start-up – sponsored by Sony Semiconductor Solutions

• Winner: TriEye
• Silver: Outsight
• Silver: WaveSense

Best in Class Perception System – sponsored by Varroc Lighting Systems

• Winner: OmniVision Technologies – OAX4010 ISP ASIC
• Silver: General Motors – Transparent Trailer for 2020 GMC Sierra and Silverado HD
• Silver: Innoviz – InnovizOne LiDAR

Most Innovative In-Cabin Application

• Winner: Daimler – MBUX Interior Assistant
• Silver: Eyeris – In-vehicle Scene Understanding AI
• Silver: Seeing Machines – FOVIO Driver Monitoring Technology

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ams presents hyperspectral sensor for NIR sensing of spectral signatures in consumer applications:

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Huawei Mate30 Pro 5G smartphone has some unique camera features:

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Art19 publishes an hour-long interview with Eric Fossum:

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PRNewswire: OmniVision announces 1.3MP OX01F10 SoC, an 1/4" 3.0um pixel image sensor with ISP for automotive rear view camera (RVC) and surround view system (SVS).

"Analysts predict that SVS and RVC will continue to hold the majority share in the automotive camera market, with over 50% of the total market volume through 2023. SVS, in particular, is expected to double its growth between now and 2023 due to increased customer adoption," said Andy Hanvey, director of automotive marketing at OmniVision. "Our OX01F10 SoC provides the best option for automotive designers responding to this growing consumer demand for better RVCs, along with the expansion of SVS into the mainstream market. Additionally, this SOC's functional safety features allow module providers to create a single platform for both the viewing cameras and the machine vision applications that require ASIL B."

OmniVision's dual conversion gain (DCG) technology is employed in this SoC to achieve a high dynamic range of 120dB with only two captures, as opposed to three required by the competition, which minimizes motion artifacts while reducing power consumption and boosting low-light performance. The OX01F10 features less than 300mW typical power consumption, which is said to be 30% lower than competitors.

Its integrated ISP features:

• Lens chromatic aberration correction
• Advanced noise reduction and local tone mapping
• Optimizations for the on-chip image sensor's PureCel Plus technology

PureCel Plus technology provides what is said to be an industry best SNR1 of 0.19 lux. This results in the OX01F10 performing better than the competition across challenging lighting conditions. The OX01F10 SoC is AEC-Q100 Grade 2 certified and samples are available now.

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BusinessWire: Outsight launches its 3D Semantic Camera for autonomous driving and other industries. Outsight founders, Raul Bravo, co-founder and CEO of former company Dibotics and Cedric Hutchings, co-founder of Withings and former VP of Nokia Technologies, joined forces to create a new entity that aims to combine the software assets of Dibotics with 3D sensor technology. Together with Dibotics’ other co-founder Oliver Garcia and Scott Buchter, co-founder of Lasersec, the four have assembled a global team of top talent in San Francisco, Paris, and Helsinki to turn their vision into reality.

“We are excited to unveil our 3D Semantic Camera that brings an unprecedented solution for a vehicle to detect road hazards and prevent accidents.” - Cedric Hutchings, CEO and Co-founder of Outsight.

Outsight's 3D Semantic Camera is said to be able to bring Full Situation Awareness and new levels of safety/reliability for currently man-controlled machines like Level 1- 3 ADAS, Construction/Mining equipment, Helicopters, etc, but also accelerate the emergence of fully automated Smart Machines like Level 4- 5 Self Driving Cars, Robots, Drones, Autonomous flying taxis etc.

"Our 3D Semantic Camera is not only able to tackle current driving safety problems , but bring driving safety to new levels. With being able to unveil the full reality of the world by providing information that was previously invisible, we at Outsight are convinced that a whole new world of applications will be unleashed. This is just the beginning." - Raul Bravo, President and Co-founder of Outsight.

The technology is the very first of its kind to be intended to provide Full Situation Awareness in a single device. It’s a mass-producible, “all in one solution” technology with the ability to simultaneously perceive and comprehend the environment from hundreds of meters, including the key chemical composition of objects (Skin, Cotton, Ice, Snow, Plastic, Metal, Wood...).

This is partly made possible through the development of a low powered, long range and eye-safe broadband laser that allows for material composition to be identified through active hyperspectral analysis. Combined with its 3D SLAM on Chip capability (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping), Outsight's technology is able to unveil the Full Reality of the world in real-time. Outsight's 3D Semantic Camera is capable of providing actionable information and object classification through the onboard SoC that does not rely on “Machine Learning”, resulting in lower power consumption and bandwidth needed. This new approach eliminates the need for massive data sets for training and the guesswork is eliminated through actually “measuring” the objects. Being able to determine the material of an object adds a new level of confidence to determine what the camera is actually seeing.

It’s able to not only see and measure, but comprehend the world, as it provides the position, the size and the full velocity of all moving objects in its surroundings, providing valuable information for path planning and decision making. The 3D Semantic Camera can provide important information regarding road conditions and can, for example, identify black ice and other hazardous road conditions. This feature is vital for safety in ADAS systems for example. The system can also quickly identify pedestrians and bicyclists through its material identification capabilities.

Outsight has already started joint development programs with key OEMs and Tier1 providers in Automotive, Aeronautics and Security-Surveillance markets and will progressively open the technology to other partners in Q1-2020.






Thanks to JB for the info!

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GlobeNewswire: Himax announces the WiseEye WE-I Plus, an AI accelerator-embedded ASIC platform solution to develop and deploy CNN-based machine learning (ML) models on AIoT applications including smart home appliances and surveillance systems.

The WiseEye WE-I Plus ASIC adopts a programmable processor with enhanced DSP features and a power-efficient CDM, HOG and JPEG hardware accelerator for real-time motion detection, object detection, and image processing. To address the issue of rising security risk surrounding AIoT applications, the WiseEye WE-I Plus ASIC is equipped with comprehensive hardware and software integrated security solutions such as security boot, security OTA and security metadata output over TLS. In order to meet the demand for ultra-low power and long battery life, in addition to low-power-driven ASIC design, the embedded LDO and multi-state PMU have been purposely built to support shutdown, AoS (always on sensing) and CV efficient operation modes. Furthermore, an associated software library with a comprehensive tool chain is provided for efficient implementation of ML technology when processing captured data from image, voice and ambient sensors.

“The demand for battery-powered smart devices with AI-enabled intelligent sensing is rapidly growing, especially in markets such as home appliances, door lock, TV, notebook and building control or security. Our WiseEye WE-I Plus ASIC platform solution can be used with popular ML frameworks for the development of a wide range of applications in audio, video and signal processing where power is a strict constraint and on-device memory is limited. We are receiving positive feedbacks from our partners and leading industry players,” said Jordan Wu, President and CEO of Himax.

The chip is based on Synopsys ARC EV7x Vision Processor IP:

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PRNewswire: Sony publishes "Letter from the CEO to Sony’s Shareholders and All Stakeholders" rejecting the possibility of spin-off image sensor business:

"...On June 13, 2019, Third Point LLC (“Third Point”) issued a public letter to investors suggesting that Sony should consider spinning-off and publicly listing our semiconductor business, which would effectively separate Sony into an entertainment company and a semiconductor (technology) company. We appreciate Third Point’s strong interest in Sony and welcome the fact that many people have been reminded of the value and further growth opportunities of that business.

Sony’s Board and management team, along with external financial and legal advisors in Japan and the U.S., conducted an extensive analysis of Third Point’s recommendations. Following this review, Sony’s Board, which is comprised of a majority of independent outside directors with diverse experience in a variety of industries, unanimously concluded that retaining the semiconductor business (now called the Imaging & Sensing Solutions (“I&SS”) business) is the best strategy for enhancing Sony’s corporate value over the long term. This is based on the fact that the I&SS business is a crucial growth driver for Sony that is expected to create even more value going forward through its close collaboration with the other businesses and personnel within the Sony Group. The Board also reaffirmed that to maintain and further strengthen its own competitiveness, it would be best for the I&SS business to stay within the Sony Group.

In its letter, Third Point described our semiconductor business, which is centered on image sensors, as a “Japanese crown jewel and technology champion.” Sony’s Board and management team share this view and are excited about the immense potential the I&SS business brings Sony. We expect it to not only further expand its current global number one position in imaging applications, but also continue to grow in new and rapidly developing markets such as the Internet of Things (“IoT”) and autonomous driving. We also expect it will contribute to the creation of a safer and more reliable society through its innovative technology.

While Sony’s Board and management team do not agree with Third Point’s recommendation to spin-off and publicly list the I&SS business, we will continue to proactively evaluate Sony’s business portfolio, pursue asset optimization within each business, and supplement our public disclosures as we execute on our strategy to increase shareholder value over the long term.

...Our strategy for future growth of the I&SS business is to develop AI sensors which make our sensors more intelligent by embedding artificial intelligence (AI) into the sensors themselves. We envisage AI and sensing being used across a wide range of applications such as IoT, autonomous driving, games and advanced medicine, and believe there is a potential for image sensors to evolve from the hardware they are today, to a solutions and platforms business.

...Our analysis, which was carried out in collaboration with outside financial advisors, also identified multiple meaningful sources of dis-synergy if the I&SS business was to separate from Sony and operate as a publicly listed independent company. These dissynergies include increased patent licensing fees, reduced ability to attract talent, increased costs and management resources as a publicly listed company, and tax inefficiencies, in addition to the time required for making the public listing."

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NHK STRL presentation from May 2019 talks about the company's vision for 2030-40 TV technology where 3D imaging takes a central role:

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Manchester and Bristol Universities, UK, publish arxiv.org paper "A Camera That CNNs: Towards Embedded Neural Networks on Pixel Processor Arrays" by Laurie Bose, Jianing Chen, Stephen J. Carey, Piotr Dudek, and Walterio Mayol-Cuevas (see the video presentation in an earlier post.)

"We present a convolutional neural network implementation for pixel processor array (PPA) sensors. PPA hardware consists of a fine-grained array of general-purpose processing elements, each capable of light capture, data storage, program execution, and communication with neighboring elements. This allows images to be stored and manipulated directly at the point of light capture, rather than having to transfer images to external processing hardware. Our CNN approach divides this array up into 4x4 blocks of processing elements, essentially trading-off image resolution for increased local memory capacity per 4x4 "pixel". We implement parallel operations for image addition, subtraction and bit-shifting images in this 4x4 block format. Using these components we formulate how to perform ternary weight convolutions upon these images, compactly store results of such convolutions, perform max-pooling, and transfer the resulting sub-sampled data to an attached micro-controller. We train ternary weight filter CNNs for digit recognition and a simple tracking task, and demonstrate inference of these networks upon the SCAMP5 PPA system. This work represents a first step towards embedding neural network processing capability directly onto the focal plane of a sensor."

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