Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

BusinessWire: ams announces a pre-release of one of the industry’s smallest, lightest 100k pixel image sensors suitable for use in mobile or wearable consumer devices like VR headsets.

The new NanEyeC image sensor is supplied as a lensed, chip-scale module which has a footprint of 1mm2 and weighs about 1g. Combining a wide-angle view with a good depth of focus, the NanEyeC offers the speed and picture quality needed for an emerging set of video applications where the camera must be virtually invisible to the end user, or be accommodated in a very small space. They include:

• Eye tracking in VR or augmented reality (AR) headsets or frames
• People detection and counting in building automation systems such as smart lighting and air conditioning
• Object detection and avoidance in robotic equipment such as autonomous vacuum cleaners or the smallest of drones
• Toys and model trains for an immersive experience
• Capsule endoscopy or dental imaging tools

Dina Aguiar, Marketing Manager for the Micro Camera Module product line at ams, says: “Due to the NanEye’s tiny dimensions and high image quality, the product family already has a loyal following among medical endoscopes manufacturers. Now the NanEyeC consumer version offers the same quality and performance in a compact SGA package suitable for mounting on the space-constrained PCB in wearable or mobile devices.”

The NanEyeC camera is a full-featured image sensor supplied as a 1mm x 1mm lensed surface-mount module. It provides digital image data at a maximum resolution of 320px x 320px, and when in Single Ended Interface Mode (SEIM) can achieve a maximum speed of 58 frames/s.

The sensor’s digital LVDS or SEIM interfaces connect it to any host microcontroller or applications processor. The sensor also has an idle mode for reduced power consumption.

The NanEyeC image sensor is available for sampling, in addition an evaluation kit can be ordered.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Imec unveils a prototype high-resolution SWIR image sensor with record small pixel pitch of 1.82 µm. It is based on a thin-film photodetector that is monolithically integrated on a custom Si-CMOS readout circuit. A fab-compatible process flow paves the way to high-throughput, wafer-level manufacturing.  The presented technology largely exceeds the capabilities of today’s InGaAs-based SWIR imagers in terms of pixel pitch and resolution, with disruptive cost and form factor potential. New applications are enabled even in cost-sensitive domains, such as in industrial machine vision, smart agriculture, automotive, surveillance, life sciences and consumer electronics.

Sensing in SWIR band (with wavelengths from ~1.4 um to above 2 um) offers advantages over the visible  and NIR bands for some applications. SWIR image sensors can, for example, see through smoke or fog, or even through silicon – which is especially relevant for inspection and industrial machine vision applications. To date, SWIR image sensors are produced through a hybrid technology, in which a III-V-based photodetector (usually InGaAs-based) is flip-chip bonded to a silicon readout circuit. These sensors can be made extremely sensitive, but the technology is quite expensive for mass manufacturing and limited in size of pixel and number of pixels – hindering its adoption in markets for which cost, resolution and/or form factor are crucial.

Imec introduces an alternative solution. The photodetector pixel stack implements a thin absorber layer such as 5.5 nm PbS quantum dots – corresponding to peak absorption at 1400 nm wavelength. The peak absorption wavelength can be tuned by adjusting the nanocrystal size and is extendable to wavelengths even above 2000 nm. At the peak SWIR wavelength, an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 18% is obtained (and can be upgraded towards 50% with further improvements). The photodetector stack is monolithically integrated with a custom ROIC in 130 nm process. In this readout circuit, the 3-transistor pixel design was optimized for the scaling of pixel size in the accessible 130 nm technology node, resulting in record small pitch of 1.82 µm for the prototype SWIR imager.

Pawel Malinowski, imec’s thin-film imagers program manager: “With our compact, high resolution SWIR image sensor technology, we offer our customers a path to affordable low-volume manufacturing within imec’s 200 mm facility. These image sensors can be deployed in industrial machine vision (e.g. photovoltaic panel monitoring), smart agriculture (e.g. inspection and sorting), automotive, surveillance, life sciences (e.g. lens-free imaging) and many more. Due to their small form factor, they can potentially be integrated in small cameras, such as in smartphones or AR/VR glasses – with eye-safe SWIR light sources. Some of exciting future developments include increasing of the EQE (which currently is already at 50% in SWIR on test samples), reducing the sensor noise and introducing multispectral arrays with customized patterning approach.”

Imec kindly provided me with a deck of slides presented at a webinar devoted to the new sensor announcement:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

LeiShen compares its mechanical rotating LiDAR with similar models from Velodyne and Robosense:

"You can see different design of our devices and Velodyne and Robosense. We developed our own chip and you can see our laser receiver and sender are in only two PCB board.

So there are 16 receivers in one PCB board and 16 pcs of sender in another board. Only two PCB board to make on Lidar sensor. (Much innovated than before.) So our internal design are much better than our competitors. And we have no patent issue in this as well.

The design of our competitors is that they have 16 sender of PCB board and 16 receivers PCB boards. So they need to keep them in same level with glue. (they have 32 PCB board to make only one 16 layers lidar sensor.) High cost and complicated. But performance are the same.

So our solution will be the future trend. Our competitors, With glue to hold the components, when LiDAR sensor works for a long time the glue will broken and then the devices will broken as well.

And also from another aspects, you can see that they will spend more time to produce one device. Their production and assembly time is much longer."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

KnobbeMartens, Justia:  The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled that  Hamamatsu must transfer its foreign patents for Black Silicon technology to SiOnyx.

"Hamamatsu entered into a Non-Disclosure Agreement (“NDA”) with SiOnyx to discuss joint development of the technology and received confidential information.  The NDA provided that ownership of all patent rights in or arising from confidential information resides in the disclosing party.  Hamamatsu ultimately declined to use SiOnyx’s proprietary process.  However,  Hamamatsu continued to develop photodetector devices using SiOnyx’s confidential information, for which Hamamatsu applied for and obtained patents in the U.S. and several other countries.

After Hamamatsu started commercializing products, SiOnyx sued Hamamatsu for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, patent infringement, and correction of inventorship in Hamamatsu’s U.S. patents.

The Court found that under the NDA, the disclosing party owned the patents arising from the disclosing party’s confidential information exchanged under the agreement.  Hamamatsu failed to show any evidence that it contributed confidential information to the patents under the terms of the NDA, other than that which it appropriated from SiOnyx. ...the Federal Circuit found that the evidence establishing SiOnyx’s sole ownership of the U.S. patents also applied to ownership of the foreign patents."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

KnobbeMartens, Justia:  The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled that  Hamamatsu must transfer its foreign patents for Black Silicon technology to SiOnyx.

"Hamamatsu entered into a Non-Disclosure Agreement (“NDA”) with SiOnyx to discuss joint development of the technology and received confidential information.  The NDA provided that ownership of all patent rights in or arising from confidential information resides in the disclosing party.  Hamamatsu ultimately declined to use SiOnyx’s proprietary process.  However,  Hamamatsu continued to develop photodetector devices using SiOnyx’s confidential information, for which Hamamatsu applied for and obtained patents in the U.S. and several other countries.

After Hamamatsu started commercializing products, SiOnyx sued Hamamatsu for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, patent infringement, and correction of inventorship in Hamamatsu’s U.S. patents.

The Court found that under the NDA, the disclosing party owned the patents arising from the disclosing party’s confidential information exchanged under the agreement.  Hamamatsu failed to show any evidence that it contributed confidential information to the patents under the terms of the NDA, other than that which it appropriated from SiOnyx. ...the Federal Circuit found that the evidence establishing SiOnyx’s sole ownership of the U.S. patents also applied to ownership of the foreign patents."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

2016 MSc Thesis "Impact of Power Supply Noise on Image Sensor Performance in Automotive Applications" by Shane Gilroy from Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland, tests 1MP and VGA Omnivision sensors row noise when applying 1Vpp noise on the supply rail. Surprisingly, the sensors are able to work and output a reasonably good images for such a huge supply noise:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

GSMArena: Multi-camera phones conquer the market. According to Omdia, triple, quad, and penta cameras together occupy ~75% of the market in Q3 2020. Quad and penta camera devices alone are 60% of the Q3 market:

Amazon announces AWS Panorama device that turns any security cameras into an AI-enabled cloud-connected surveillance system:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

IEEE Sensors publishes a number of 3/12-min presentation videos from its Oct. 2020 Conference:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

ISSCC has announced its 2021 Advance Program with a lot of image sensor content. It starts from a Plenary Session:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

MDPI paper "Toward the Super Temporal Resolution Image Sensor with a Germanium Photodiode for Visible Light" by Nguyen Hoai Ngo, Anh Quang Nguyen, Fabian M. Bufler, Yoshinari Kamakura, Hideki Mutoh, Takayoshi Shimura, Takuji Hosoi, Heiji Watanabe, Philippe Matagne, Kazuhiro Shimonomura, Kohsei Takehara, Edoardo Charbon, and Takeharu Goji Etoh from Ritsumeikan University, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, IMEC, Osaka Institute of Technology, Osaka University, Link Research Corporation, Kindai University, and EPFL presents Ge PD to overcome the Si speed limit:

"The theoretical temporal resolution limit tT of a silicon photodiode (Si PD) is 11.1 ps. We call “super temporal resolution” the temporal resolution that is shorter than that limit. To achieve this resolution, Germanium is selected as a candidate material for the photodiode (Ge PD) for visible light since the absorption coefficient of Ge for the wavelength is several tens of times higher than that of Si, allowing a very thin PD. On the other hand, the saturation drift velocity of electrons in Ge is about 2/3 of that in Si. The ratio suggests an ultra-short propagation time of electrons in the Ge PD. However, the diffusion coefficient of electrons in Ge is four times higher than that of Si. Therefore, Monte Carlo simulations were applied to analyze the temporal resolution of the Ge PD. The estimated theoretical temporal resolution limit is 0.26 ps, while the practical limit is 1.41 ps. To achieve a super temporal resolution better than 11.1 ps, the driver circuit must operate at least 100 GHz. It is thus proposed to develop, at first, a short-wavelength infrared (SWIR) ultra-high-speed image sensor with a thicker and wider Ge PD, and then gradually decrease the size along with the progress of the driver circuits."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

VentureBeat publishes an article on Trinamix intention to enter smartphone market with its multispectral sensors for materials identification:

"The technology is called near-infrared spectroscopy, and it uses laser light to detect the molecular vibrations that distinguish different substances.

Trinamix said it intends to build a potent, yet miniaturized infrared sensing module for integration into smartphones. The module sends out infrared light, which is reflected from the object and detected by the sensor. The company said breakthroughs in research enabled it to reduce the size of the device down to a smartphone form factor while ensuring high-volume production capacities."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

APL Photonics paper "CMOS-compatible all-dielectric metalens for improving pixel photodetector arrays" by E. Mikheeva, J.-B. Claude, M. Salomoni,  J. Wenger,  J. Lumeau,  R. Abdeddaim,  A. Ficorella,  A. Gola,  G. Paternoster, M. Paganoni, E. Auffray,  P. Lecoq, and  S. Enoch from Institut Fresnel, Multiwave Imaging, University of Milano-Bicocca, CERN, FBK, and Multiwave Metacrystal SA proposes an improvement in SPAD array sensitivity:

"Metasurfaces and, in particular, metalenses have attracted large interest and enabled various applications in the near-infrared and THz regions of the spectrum. However, the metalens design in the visible range stays quite challenging due to the smaller nanostructuring scale and the limited choice of lossless CMOS-compatible materials. We develop a simple yet efficient design of a polarization-independent, broadband metalens suitable for many CMOS-compatible fabrication techniques and materials and implement it for the visible spectral range using niobium pentoxide (Nb2O5). The produced metalens demonstrates high transmittance and focusing ability as well as a large depth of focus, which makes it a promising solution for a new generation of silicon photomultiplier photodetectors with reduced fill factor impact on the performance and reduced electron–hole generation regions, which altogether potentially leads to improved photodetection efficiency and other characteristics."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Qualcomm unveils the its latest triple ISP at 2020 Tech Summit:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...