Fujifilm instax WIDE 400 review
Panasonic Lumix GH7 review
CEA-Leti announces three-layer CIS
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
CEA-Leti Reports Three-Layer Integration Breakthrough On the Path for Offering AI-Embedded CMOS Image Sensors
This Work Demonstrates Feasibility of Combining Hybrid Bonding and High-Density Through-Silicon Vias
DENVER – May 31, 2024 – CEA-Leti scientists reported a series of successes in three related projects at ECTC 2024 that are key steps to enabling a new generation of CMOS image sensors (CIS) that can exploit all the image data to perceive a scene, understand the situation and intervene in it – capabilities that require embedding AI in the sensor.
Demand for smart sensors is growing rapidly because of their high-performance imaging capabilities in smartphones, digital cameras, automobiles and medical devices. This demand for improved image quality and functionality enhanced by embedded AI has presented manufacturers with the challenge of improving sensor performance without increasing the device size.
“Stacking multiple dies to create 3D architectures, such as three-layer imagers, has led to a paradigm shift in sensor design,” said Renan Bouis, lead author of the paper, “Backside Thinning Process Development for High-Density TSV in a 3-Layer Integration”.
“The communication between the different tiers requires advanced interconnection technologies, a requirement that hybrid bonding meets because of its very fine pitch in the micrometer & even sub-micrometer range,” he said. “High-density through-silicon via (HD TSV) has a similar density that enables signal transmission through the middle tiers. Both technologies contribute to the reduction of wire length, a critical factor in enhancing the performance of 3D-stacked architectures.”
‘Unparalleled Precision and Compactness’
The three projects applied the institute’s previous work on stacking three 300 mm silicon wafers using those technology bricks. “The papers present the key technological bricks that are mandatory for manufacturing 3D, multilayer smart imagers capable of addressing new applications that require embedded AI,” said Eric Ollier, project manager at CEA-Leti and director of IRT Nanoelec’s Smart Imager program. The CEA-Leti institute is a major partner of IRT Nanoelec.
“Combining hybrid bonding with HD TSVs in CMOS image sensors could facilitate the integration of various components, such as image sensor arrays, signal processing circuits and memory elements, with unparalleled precision and compactness,” said Stéphane Nicolas, lead author of the paper, “3-Layer Fine Pitch Cu-Cu Hybrid Bonding Demonstrator With High Density TSV For Advanced CMOS Image Sensor Applications,” which was chosen as one of the conference’s highlighted papers.
The project developed a three-layer test vehicle that featured two embedded Cu-Cu hybrid-bonding interfaces, face-to-face (F2F) and face-to-back (F2B), and with one wafer containing high-density TSVs.
Ollier said the test vehicle is a key milestone because it demonstrates both feasibility of each technological brick and also the feasibility of the integration process flow. “This project sets the stage to work on demonstrating a fully functional three-layer, smart CMOS image sensor, with edge AI capable of addressing high performance semantic segmentation and object-detection applications,” he said.
At ECTC 2023, CEA-Leti scientists reported a two-layer test vehicle combining a 10-micron high, 1-micron diameter HD TSV and highly controlled hybrid bonding technology, both assembled in F2B configuration. The recent work then shortened the HD TSV to six microns high, which led to development of a two-layer test vehicle exhibiting low dispersion electrical performances and enabling simpler manufacturing.
’40 Percent Decrease in Electrical Resistance’
“Our 1-by-6-micron copper HD TSV offers improved electrical resistance and isolation performance compared to our 1-by-10-micron HD TSV, thanks to an optimized thinning process that enabled us to reduce the substrate thickness with good uniformity,” said Stéphan Borel, lead author of the paper, “Low Resistance and High Isolation HD TSV for 3-Layer CMOS Image Sensors”.
“This reduced height led to a 40 percent decrease in electrical resistance, in proportion with the length reduction. Simultaneous lowering of the aspect ratio increased the step coverage of the isolation liner, leading to a better voltage withstand,” he added.
“With these results, CEA-Leti is now clearly identified as a global leader in this new field dedicated to preparing the next generation of smart imagers,” Ollier explained. “These new 3D multi-layer smart imagers with edge AI implemented in the sensor itself will really be a breakthrough in the imaging field, because edge AI will increase imager performance and enable many new applications.”
Conference List – October 2024
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
AutoSens Europe - 8-10 Oct 2024 - Barcelona, Spain - Website
Vision - 8-10 Oct 2024 - Stuttgart, Germany - Website
SPIE/COS Photonics Asia - 12-14 Oct 2024 - Nantong, Jiangsu, China - Website
BioPhotonics Conference - 15-17 Oct 2024 - Online - Website
IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Circuits and Systems - 18-19 Oct 2024 - New Delhi, India - Website
IEEE Sensors Conference - 20-23 Oct 2024 - Kobe, Japan - Website
Optica Laser Congress and Exhibition - 20-24 Oct 2024 - Osaka, Japan - Website
ASNT Annual Conference - 21-24 Oct 2024 - Las Vegas, Nevada, USA - Website
OPTO Taiwan - 23-25 Oct 2024 - Taipei, Taiwan - Website
IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference, and Room-Temperature Semiconductor Detectors Symposium - 26 Oct-2 Nov 2024 - Tampa, Florida, USA - Website
IEEE International Conference on Image Processing - 27-30 Oct 2024 - Abu Dhabi, UAE - Website
SPIE Photonex - 30-31 Oct 2024 - Manchester, UK - Website
If you know about additional local conferences, please add them as comments.
Return to Conference List index
Canon develops high-performance materials for perovskite solar cells to improve substantial durability and mass-production stability
IISS updates its papers database
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
The International Image Sensor Society has a new and updated papers repository thanks to a multi-month overhaul effort.
- 853 IISW workshop papers in the period 2007-2023 are updated with DOI (Digital Object Identifier). Check out any of these papers in the IISS Online Library.
- Each paper has a landing page containing metadata such as title, authors, year, keywords, references, and of course link to the PDF.
- As an extra service we have also identified DOIs (if exists) to referenced papers in workshop papers. This makes it convenient to access referenced papers by clicking on the DOI directly from the landing page.
- DOIs for pre-2007 workshop papers will be added later.
IISS website: https://imagesensors.org/
IISS Online Library: https://imagesensors.org/past-workshops-library/
Job Postings – Week of 16 June 2024
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
|
Paper on event cameras for automotive vision in Nature
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
In a recent open access Nature article titled "Low-latency automotive vision with event cameras", Daniel Gehrig and Davide Scaramuzza write:
The computer vision algorithms used currently in advanced driver assistance systems rely on image-based RGB cameras, leading to a critical bandwidth–latency trade-off for delivering safe driving experiences. To address this, event cameras have emerged as alternative vision sensors. Event cameras measure the changes in intensity asynchronously, offering high temporal resolution and sparsity, markedly reducing bandwidth and latency requirements. Despite these advantages, event-camera-based algorithms are either highly efficient but lag behind image-based ones in terms of accuracy or sacrifice the sparsity and efficiency of events to achieve comparable results. To overcome this, here we propose a hybrid event- and frame-based object detector that preserves the advantages of each modality and thus does not suffer from this trade-off. Our method exploits the high temporal resolution and sparsity of events and the rich but low temporal resolution information in standard images to generate efficient, high-rate object detections, reducing perceptual and computational latency. We show that the use of a 20 frames per second (fps) RGB camera plus an event camera can achieve the same latency as a 5,000-fps camera with the bandwidth of a 45-fps camera without compromising accuracy. Our approach paves the way for efficient and robust perception in edge-case scenarios by uncovering the potential of event cameras.
Also covered in an ArsTechnica article: New camera design can ID threats faster, using less memory https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/06/new-camera-design-can-id-threats-faster-using-less-memory/
a, Unlike frame-based sensors, event cameras do not suffer from the bandwidth–latency trade-off: high-speed cameras (top left) capture low-latency but high-bandwidth data, whereas low-speed cameras (bottom right) capture low-bandwidth but high-latency data. Instead, our 20 fps camera plus event camera hybrid setup (bottom left, red and blue dots in the yellow rectangle indicate event camera measurements) can capture low-latency and low-bandwidth data. This is equivalent in latency to a 5,000-fps camera and in bandwidth to a 45-fps camera. b, Application scenario. We leverage this setup for low-latency, low-bandwidth traffic participant detection (bottom row, green rectangles are detections) that enhances the safety of downstream systems compared with standard cameras (top and middle rows). c, 3D visualization of detections. To do so, our method uses events (red and blue dots) in the blind time between images to detect objects (green rectangle), before they become visible in the next image (red rectangle).
a,b, Comparison of asynchronous, dense feedforward and dense recurrent methods, in terms of task performance (mAP) and computational complexity (MFLOPS per inserted event) on the purely event-based Gen1 detection dataset41 (a) and N-Caltech101 (ref. 42) (b). c, Results of DSEC-Detection. All methods on this benchmark use images and events and are tasked to predict labels 50 ms after the first image, using events. Methods with dagger symbol use directed voxel grid pooling. For a full table of results, see Extended Data Table 1.
a, Detection performance in terms of mAP for our method (cyan), baseline method Events + YOLOX (ref. 34) (blue) and image-based method YOLOX (ref. 34) with constant and linear extrapolation (yellow and brown). Grey lines correspond to inter-frame intervals of automotive cameras. b, Bandwidth requirements of these cameras, and our hybrid event + image camera setup. The red lines correspond to the median, and the box contains data between the first and third quartiles. The distance from the box edges to the whiskers measures 1.5 times the interquartile range. c, Bandwidth and performance comparison. For each frame rate (and resulting bandwidth), the worst-case (blue) and average (red) mAP is plotted. For frame-based methods, these lie on the grey line. The performance using the hybrid event + image camera setup is plotted as a red star (mean) and blue star (worst case). The black star points in the direction of the ideal performance–bandwidth trade-off.
PIXEL2024 workshop
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
The Eleventh International Workshop on Semiconductor Pixel Detectors for Particles and Imaging (Pixel2024) will take place 18-22 November 2024 at the Collège Doctoral Européen, University of Strasbourg, France.
The workshop will cover various topics related to pixel detector technology. Development and applications will be discussed for charged particle tracking in high energy physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics, astronomy, biology, medical imaging and photon science. The conference program will also include reports on radiation effects, timing with pixel sensors, monolithic sensors, sensing materials, front and back end electronics, as well as interconnection and integration technologies toward detector systems.
All sessions are plenary and include a poster session. Contributions will be chosen from submitted abstracts.
Key deadlines:
- abstract submission: July 5,
- early bird registration: September 1,
- late registration: September 30.
Abstract submission link: https://indico.in2p3.fr/event/32425/abstracts/
Himax invests in Obsidian thermal imagers
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
From GlobeNewswire: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/05/29/2889639/8267/en/Himax-Announces-Strategic-Investment-in-Obsidian-Sensors-to-Revolutionize-Next-Gen-Thermal-Imagers.html
Himax Announces Strategic Investment in Obsidian Sensors to Revolutionize Next-Gen Thermal Imagers
TAINAN, Taiwan and SAN DIEGO, May 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Himax Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: HIMX) (“Himax” or “Company”), a leading supplier and fabless manufacturer of display drivers and other semiconductor products, today announced its strategic investment in Obsidian Sensors, Inc. ("Obsidian"), a San Diego-based thermal imaging sensor solution manufacturer. Himax's strategic investment in Obsidian Sensors, as the lead investor in Obsidian’s convertible note financing, was motivated by the potential of their proprietary and revolutionary high-resolution thermal sensors to dominate the market through low-cost, high-volume production capabilities. The investment amount was not disclosed. In addition to an ongoing engineering collaboration where Obsidian leverages Himax's IC design resources and know-how, the two companies also aim to combine the advantages of Himax’s WiseEye ultralow power AI processors with Obsidian’s high-resolution thermal imaging to create an advanced thermal vision solution. This would complement Himax's existing AI capabilities and ecosystem support, improving detection in challenging environments and boosting accuracy and reliability, thereby opening doors to a wide array of applications, including industrial, automotive safety and autonomy, and security systems. Obsidian’s proprietary thermal imaging camera solutions have already garnered attention in the industry, with notable existing investors including Qualcomm Ventures, Hyundai, Hyundai Mobis, SK Walden and Innolux.
Thermal imaging sensors offer unparalleled versatility, capable of detecting heat differences in total darkness, measuring temperature, and identifying distant objects. They are particularly well suited for a wide range of surveillance applications, especially in challenging and life-saving scenarios. Compared to prevailing thermal sensor solutions, which typically suffer from low resolution, high cost, and limited production volumes, Obsidian is revolutionizing the thermal imaging industry by producing high resolution thermal sensors with its proprietary Large Area MEMS Platform (“LAMP”), offering low-cost production at high volumes. With large glass substrates capable of producing sensors with superior resolution, VGA or higher, at volumes exceeding 100 million units per year, Obsidian is poised to drive the mass market adoption of this unrivaled technology across industries, including automotive, security, surveillance, drones, and more.
With accelerating interest in both the consumer and defense sectors, Obsidian’s groundbreaking thermal imaging sensor solutions are gaining traction in automotive applications and poised to play a pivotal role. The novel ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) and AEB (Automatic Emergency Braking) system, integrated with Obsidian’s thermal sensors, significantly enable higher-resolution and clear vision in low-light and adverse weather conditions such as fog, smoke, rain, and snow, ensuring much better driving safety and security. This aligns perfectly with measures announced by the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) on April 29, 2024, which issued its final rule mandating the implementation of AEB, including PAEB (Pedestrian AEB) that is effective at night, as a standard feature on all new cars beginning in 2029, recognizing pedestrian safety features as essential components rather than just luxury add-ons. This safety standard is expected to significantly reduce rear-end and pedestrian crashes. Traffic safety authorities in other countries are also following suit with similar regulations underscoring the trend and significant potential demand for thermal imaging sensors from Obsidian Sensors in the years to come.
“We are pleased to begin our strategic partnership with Himax through this funding round and look forward to a fruitful collaboration to potentially merge our market leading thermal imaging sensor and camera technologies with Himax’s advanced ultralow power WiseEyeTM endpoint AI, leveraging each other's domain expertise. Furthermore, progress has been made in the engineering projects for mixed signal integrated circuits, leveraging Himax’s decades of experience in image processing. Given our disruptive cost and scale advantage, this partnership will enable us to better cater to the needs of the rapid-growing thermal imaging market,” said John Hong, CEO of Obsidian Sensors.
“We see great potential in Obsidian Sensors' revolutionary high-resolution thermal imaging sensor. Himax’s strategic investment in Obsidian further enhances our portfolio and expands our technology reach to cover thermal sensing which represents a great compliment to our WiseEye technology, a world leading ultralow power image sensing AI total solution. Further, we see tremendous potential of Obsidian’s technology in the automotive sector where Himax already holds a dominant position in display semiconductors. We also anticipate additional synergies through expansion of our partnership with our combined strength and respective expertise driving future success,” said Mr. Jordan Wu, President and Chief Executive Officer of Himax.
Canon developing new RF-S7.8mm F4 STM DUAL lens for EOS R7 camera for recording spatial video for Apple Vision Pro
IEEE SENSORS 2024 Update from Dan McGrath
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
IEEE SENSORS 2024 Image Sensor Update
This is a follow-up to my earlier Image Sensor World post on how the program initiative related to image sensors participation in IEEE SENSORS 2024 is coming together. Two activities targeted at the image sensor community have been organized as follows:
· A full-day workshop on Sunday, 20 October, organized by Sozo Yokogawa of SONY and Erez Tadmor of onSemi, titled “From Imaging to Sensing: Latest and Future Trends of CMOS Image Sensors”. It includes speakers from Omnivision, onSemi, Samsung, Canon, SONY, Artilux, TechInsights and Shizuoka University.
· A focus session on Monday afternoon, 21 October, organized by S-G Wuu of Brillnics, DN Yang of TSMC and John McCarten of L3/Harris on stacking in image sensors. It will lead with an invited speaker. There is the opportunity for submitted presentations on any aspect of stacking. Those interested should submit an abstract to me at dmcgrath@ieee.org before 30 June. The selection process will be handled separately from the regular process for the conference.
This initiative is to encourage the image sensor community to give SENSORS the chance to prove itself a vibrant, interesting and welcoming home for the exchange of technical advances. It is part of the IEEE Sensors Council’s initiative to increase industrial participation across the council’s activities. Other events planned at SENSORS 2024 as part of this initiative are a session on standards and a full-day in-conference workshop on the human-machine interface. There will also be the opportunity for networking between industry and students.
Consider joining the Sensors Council – it is free if you are an IEEE member. Consider the mutual benefit of being in an organization and participating in a conference that shares more than just the name “sensors”. Our image sensor community is a leader in tackling the problems of capturing what goes on in the physical world, but there are also things that can be learned by our community from the cutting-edge work related to other sensors.
The submission date for the conference in general is at present 11 June, but there is a proposal to extend it to 25 June. Check the website.
Looking forward to seeing you in Kobe.
Dan McGrath
TechInsights Inc.
Industrial Co-Chair, IEEE SENSORS 2024
AdCom member, IEEE Solid State Circuits Society & IEEE Sensor Council
dmcgrath@ieee.org
Conference List – September 2024
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
IEEE International Conference on Multisensor Fusion and Integration - 4-6 Sep 2024 - Pilsen, Czechia - Website
IEEE Sensors in Spotlight 2024 - 5 Sep 2024 - Boston, Massachusetts, USA - Website
Semi MEMS and Sensors Executive Conference - 7-9 Sep 2024 - Quebec, QC, Canada - Website
Sensor China Expo & Conference 2024 - 11-13 Sep 2024 - Shanghai, China - Website
SPIE Sensors + Imaging 2024 - 16-19 Sep 2024 - Edinburgh, Scotland, UK - Website
SPIE Photonics Industry Summit - 25 Sep 2024 - Washington, DC, USA - Website
21st International Conference on IC Design and Technology - 25-27 Sep 2024 - Singapore- Website
If you know about additional local conferences, please add them as comments.
Return to Conference List index
Canon RF 35mm f1.4L VCM review so far
Canon enters recycling system business with innovative technology, promoting circular economy with high-speed, accurate plastic sorting equipment capable of measuring even black plastic waste
ID Quauntique webinar: single photon detectors for quantum tech
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
In this webinar replay, we first explore the role of single-photon detectors in advancing quantum technologies, with a focus on superconducting nanowire detectors (SNSPDs) and the benefits they offer for quantum computing and high-speed quantum communication.
After which, we discuss the evolving needs of the field and describe IDQ’s user-focused detector solutions, including our innovative photon-number-resolving (PNR) SNSPDs and our new rack-mountable SNSPD system. We show real-world experiments that have already benefited from the outstanding performances of our detectors, including an enhanced heralded single-photon source and high key-rate QKD implementation.
Finally, we conclude with our vision on the future of single-photon detection for quantum information and networking, and the exciting possibilities this can unlock.
ID Quauntique webinar: single photon detectors for quantum tech
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
In this webinar replay, we first explore the role of single-photon detectors in advancing quantum technologies, with a focus on superconducting nanowire detectors (SNSPDs) and the benefits they offer for quantum computing and high-speed quantum communication.
After which, we discuss the evolving needs of the field and describe IDQ’s user-focused detector solutions, including our innovative photon-number-resolving (PNR) SNSPDs and our new rack-mountable SNSPD system. We show real-world experiments that have already benefited from the outstanding performances of our detectors, including an enhanced heralded single-photon source and high key-rate QKD implementation.
Finally, we conclude with our vision on the future of single-photon detection for quantum information and networking, and the exciting possibilities this can unlock.
Canon’s enforcement of its intellectual property right leads to the removal of toner cartridges, including the “TONER image technology” cartridge brand, from Coupang
ISSW 2024 this week in Trento, Italy
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
The 2024 International SPAD Sensor Workshop is happening this week in Trento, Italy. Full program is available here: https://issw2024.fbk.eu/program
Talks:
Posters:
DB HiTek global shutter and SPAD
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
From PR Newswire: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/db-hitek-advances-global-shutter-and-spad-302157652.html
DB HiTek Advances Global Shutter and SPAD
SEOUL, South Korea, June 3, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- DB HiTek, a leading foundry specialist in South Korea, is enhancing its global shutter and single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) process technologies, which are highly utilized in the automotive, industrial, robotics, and medical fields, to expand its specialized image sensor business.
The global shutter is a sensor that captures images of fast-moving objects without distortion. The demand for global shutters is rapidly increasing in various fields, including machine vision, automotive, drones, robotics, and medical devices, with an expected annual average market growth rate of 16% from 2022 to 2029.
DB HiTek's 7 Tr charge domain global shutter achieves PLS≥35,000 at 5.6 um pixels using light shield and light guide technologies and supports various sizes down to a minimum of 2.8 um pixels (PLS≥10,000).
Parasitic light sensitivity (PLS) is a concept indicating sensitivity to light, and a PLS of 10,000 or higher demonstrates a shutter efficiency level significantly high enough to achieve a light detection rate of 99.99% (with a noise occurrence rate of less than one in 10,000).
DB HiTek's 6 Tr charge domain global shutter has secured PLS ≥10,000 and a memory dark current ≤20e/s at 60C in the 2.8 μm pixel. This process is expected to be completed and provided to customers by the end of this year.
SPAD is an ultra-high-sensitivity 3D image sensor that detects weak light signals at the particle level. It has high precision and allows for long-distance measurement, making it a key component in implementing future advanced technologies such as autonomous vehicles, AR/VR devices, robotics, and smartphones.
DB HiTek's second-generation SPAD process, utilizing a backside scattering technology (BST) and backside deep trench isolation (BDTI) in a BSI structure, achieves an advanced technological level with a photon detection probability of 15.8% at a wavelength of 940 nm. In addition, it ensures improved quality by securing a dark current rate (DCR) performance equivalent to 0.69 cps/um2, corresponding to the dark current of a typical CIS.
Building on the upgraded global shutter and second-generation SPAD process, DB HiTek plans to actively support fabless customers in expanding their specialized image sensor business.
A DB HiTek official said, "Currently, our company is collaborating with leading global companies in the United States, Europe, China, Japan, and other regions to develop products," adding, "We plan to enhance customer support by providing services such as customized processes, TDK for pixel development simulations, as well as multi-layer mask (MLM)."
Meanwhile, DB HiTek has recently expanded its X-ray CIS business by successfully developing products in collaboration with a leading medical sensor specialist in Europe. It is reported that the advanced quality and yield characteristics lead positive response from the customer, and the company will expand its business into the manufacturing sector following the medical field.
Job Postings – Week of 2 June 2024
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
|
Vantage MedTech FPGA Engineer (Video) |
Moonachie, New Jersey, USA |
|
|
Brookhaven National laboratory Deputy Director – Instrumentation Division |
Upton, New York, USA |
|
|
onsemi Process Integration/Device Technology Development Engineer |
Gresham, Oregon, USA |
|
|
Boeing Senior Engineer, Infrared, Optical and Opto-Mechanical Sensor Products |
Huntington Beach, California, USA |
|
|
onsemi 2024 New College Graduate (NCG) |
Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia |
|
|
Siegen University Postdoc position for pixel detectors |
Siegen, Germany |
|
|
onsemi Image Test Algorithm Developer |
Nampa, Idaho, USA |
|
|
University of Edinburgh PhD Studentship - Adaptive Sensor Fusion for Optimised 3D Sensing |
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK |
|
|
European Spallation Source Entry Level Detector Scientist - Beam Monitors |
Lund, Sweden |
VisEra moves towards IPO
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
From Yahoo Finance news: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/finance/news/tsmc-sells-shares-optical-sensor-015509757.html?guccounter=1
TSMC Sells Shares in Optical Sensor Unit Before Planned Spinoff
(Bloomberg) -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. sold shares in VisEra Technologies Co. before a planned initial public offering of the image sensor provider.
Taiwan’s largest chipmaker sold 38 million shares in VisEra at NT$240 ($8.60) apiece, cutting its stake in the company to 73.9%, according to a filing to the Taiwan stock exchange Tuesday. It sold the stock to 17 investors, including Fidelity International, Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte and domestic institutions Cathay Life Insurance Co. and Fubon Life Insurance Co.
The transaction was to facilitate a proposed listing of VisEra in Taiwan, TSMC said in the filing without providing further details.
TSMC set up VisEra in 2003 together with Santa Clara, California-based OmniVision Technologies Inc. before buying out its partner in 2015. The company is now seeking to spin off the unit just as a boom in semiconductor demand drives a surge in prices of chipmakers and other companies that supply to the industry. TSMC’s shares have nearly doubled over the past 12 months, making it the world’s 10th most valuable company at about $589 billion.
Is 3D stacking for CIS unnecessary?
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
A recent video from GalaxyCore discusses their single wafer CIS arguing against the need for 3D stacking for higher resolution:
GalaxyCore's innovative single-wafer, high-resolution CMOS image sensor solution solves the problem of incompatibility between logic circuits and pixel technology through FPPI process and unique circuit architecture. Without the need for stacking, this advancement reduces silicon usage while maintaining performance equivalent to stacked CIS. The world's first 32-megapixel single-wafer CIS is already in mass production, and the 50-megapixel CIS has also been unveiled.
Canon and Heidelberg Announce Global Co-operation in Sheetfed Inkjet Printing
Canon and Heidelberg Announce Global Co-operation in Sheetfed Inkjet Printing
XMC plans IPO
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
XMC CIS Technology Platform [https://www.xmcwh.com/en/site/nor_flash]
XMC builds a full-loop & one-stop CIS (CMOS Image Sensor) technology platform. XMC has mass production capability of high-performance, low-power image sensor products. This technology can be widely used in smartphones, automotive electronics, machine vision, professional imaging and other market segments.
TrendForce News: https://www.trendforce.com/news/2024/05/15/news-xmc-initiates-ipo-plan-potentially-becoming-chinas-first-hbm-foundry/
(Also on DigiTimes Asia, but paywalled: https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20240514PD200/xmc-ipo-china-foundry-market.html)
XMC initiates IPO in Chinese competitive foundry market
NOR Flash manufacturer Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (XMC) recently disclosed an IPO counseling filing with the Hubei Securities Regulatory Bureau, according to the official website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. Its recently announced bidding project may indicate its ambition to become China’s first HBM foundry, according to the report by Chinese media Semi Insights.
As per information from its website, XMC provides 12-inch foundry services for NOR Flash, CIS, and Logic applications with processes of 40 nanometers and above. Originally a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC), XMC announced in March its first external financing round, increasing its registered capital from approximately CNY 5.782 billion to about CNY 8.479 billion. Its IPO counseling filing also indicates that it is still majority-owned by YMTC, with a shareholding ratio of 68.1937%.
According to market sources cited in the same report, XMC’s initiation of external financing and IPO plan is primarily aimed at supporting the significant expansion during a crucial development phase for YMTC. Given the substantial scale of YMTC, completing an IPO within three years poses challenges. Therefore, XMC was chosen as the IPO entity to enhance financing channels.
It is noteworthy that XMC also announced its latest bidding project on HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) – related advanced packaging technology R&D and production line construction, according to local media.
The project indicates the company’s capability to apply three-dimensional integrated multi-wafer stacking technology to develop domestically produced HBM products with higher capacity, greater bandwidth, lower power consumption, and higher production efficiency. With plans to add 16 sets of equipment, XMC’s latest project aims to achieve a monthly output capacity of over 3000 wafers (12 inches), showing its ambition of becoming China’s first HBM foundry.
On December 3, 2018, XMC announced the successful development of its three-dimensional wafer stacking technology based on its three-dimensional integration technology platform. This marks a significant advancement for the company in the field of three-dimensional integration technology, enabling higher density and more complex chip integration.
Currently, XMC has made much progress in the research and development of three-dimensional integrated multi-wafer stacking technology, which has been evident in the successful development of three-wafer stacking technology, the application of three-dimensional integration technology in back-illuminated image sensors, advancements in HBM technology research and industrialization efforts, as well as breakthroughs in the 3D NAND project.
Canon releases FPD lithography equipment for dashboard displays and smartphones Will achieve higher yield through wider exposure
Two New Jobs Submitted by Luxima
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
Luxima Technology
Arcadia, California, USA Career page link
Junior position - Analog Design Engineer
Senior position - Staff Analog Design Engineer
"Black Silicon" photodiodes
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
Title: Excellent Responsivity and Low Dark Current Obtained with Metal-Assisted Chemical Etched Si Photodiode
Author: Kexun Chen, Olli E. Setälä, Xiaolong Liu, Behrad Radfar, Toni P. Pasanen, Michael D. Serué, Juha Heinonen, Hele Savin, Ville Vähänissi
Affiliation: Aalto University, Finland
Abstract: Metal-assisted chemical etched (MACE, also known as MacEtch or MCCE) nanostructures are utilized widely in the solar cell industry due to their excellent optical properties combined with a simple and cost-efficient fabrication process. The photodetection community, on the other hand, has not shown much interest towards MACE due to its drawbacks including insufficient surface passivation, increased junction recombination, and possible metal contamination, which are especially detrimental to pn-photodiodes. Here, we aim to change this by demonstrating how to fabricate high-performance MACE pn-photodiodes with above 90% external quantum efficiency (EQE) without external bias voltage at 200–1000 nm and dark current less than 3 nA/cm2 at −5 V using industrially applicable methods. The key is to utilize an induced junction created by an atomic layer deposited highly charged Al2O3 thin film that simultaneously provides efficient field-effect passivation and full conformality over the MACE nanostructures. Achieving close to ideal performance demonstrates the vast potential of MACE nanostructures in the fabrication of high-performance low-cost pn-photodiodes.
Prophesee AMD collaboration on DVS FPGA devkit
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
Prophesee collaborates with AMD to deliver industry-first Event-based Vision solution running on leading, FPGA-based AMD Kria™ KV260 Vision AI Starter Kit
Developers can now take full advantage of Prophesee Event-based Metavision® sensor and AI
performance, power, and speed to create the next generation of Edge AI machine vision applications
running on AMD platforms.
PARIS - May 6, 2024 –Prophesee SA, inventor of the world’s most advanced neuromorphic vision systems, today announced that its Event-based Metavision HD sensor and AI are now available for use with the AMD Kria ™ KV260 Vision AI Starter Kit, creating a powerful and efficient combination to accelerate the development of advanced Edge machine vision applications. It marks the industry’s first Event-based Vision development kit compatible with an AMD platform, providing customers a platform to both evaluate and go to production with an industrial-grade solution for target applications such as smart city and machine vision, security cameras, retail analytics, and many others.
The development platform for the AMD Kria™ K26 System-on-Module (SOM), the KV260 Vision AI starter kit is built for advanced vision application development without requiring complex hardware design knowledge or FPGA programming skills. AMD Kria SOMs for edge AI applications provide a production-ready, energy-efficient FPGA-based device with enough I/O to speed up vision and robotics tasks at an affordable price point. Combined with the Prophesee breakthrough Event-based vision technology, machine vision system developers can leverage the lower latency and lower power capabilities of the Metavision platform to experiment and create more efficient, and in many cases not previously possible, applications compared to traditional frame-based vision sensing approaches.
A breakthrough plug-and-play Active Markers Tracking application is included in this kit. It allows for >1,000Hz 3D pose estimation, with complete background rejection at pixel level while providing extreme robustness to challenging lighting conditions.
This application highlights unique features of Prophesee’s Event-based Metavision technologies, enabling a new range of ultra high-speed tracking use cases such as game controller tracking, construction site safety, heavy load anti-sway systems and many more.
Multiple additional ready-to-use application algorithms will be made available over the coming months.
The Prophesee Starter Kit provides an ‘out of the box’ development solution to quickly get up and running with the Prophesee Metavision SDK and IMX636 HD Event-based sensor realized in collaboration between Prophesee and Sony, allowing easy porting of algorithms to the AMD commercial and industrial-grade system-on-module (SOMs) powered by the custom-built Zynq™ UltraScale+™ multiprocessing SoC.
The new, Prophesee-enabled Kria KV260 AI Starter Kit will be on display at Automate 2024 in
Prophesee’s booth 3452
“The ever-expanding Kria ecosystem helps make motion capture, connectivity, and edge AI applications more accessible to roboticists and developers,” said Chetan Khona, senior director of Industrial, Vision, Healthcare and Sciences Markets, AMD. “Prophesee Event-based Vision offers unique advantages for machine vision applications. Its low data consumption translates into efficient energy consumption, less compute and memory needed, and fast response times.”
“It’s never been easier to develop Event-based Edge applications with this combination of development aids from AMD and Prophesee,” said Luca Verre, co-founder and CEO of Prophesee. “We are providing everything needed to take complete advantage of the lower power processing and low latency performance inherent in Event-based Vision, as well as provide an environment to optimize machine vision system based on specific KPIs for customer-defined applications and use cases. This will further accelerate the adoption of Event-based Vision in key market segments that can benefit from Metavision’s unique advantages.”
https://www.prophesee.ai/event-based-metavision-amd-kria-starter-kit-imx636/
