Visual Industry Guide
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
IFNews quotes Credit Suisse saying:
Credit Suisse estimates that smartphones with 4+ cameras capture more than 30% of the market in Q2 2020:
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society publishes InSilixa webinar "Mass deployable Molecular Diagnostics MDx, including COVID 19 Testing: An IC Designer's Perspective" by Arjang Hassibi:
"In the past year, the outbreak of COVID-19 has affected many lives globally. The suboptimal response to the pandemic revealed systematic deficiencies and gaps in our modern healthcare system. One specific area with consequential shortcomings was the diagnosis of infection and the pathogen, particularly the absence (or delayed deployment) of precision tests where and when needed. In this talk, we will discuss and review highly customized IC technologies, broadly defined, that have the potential to address this unmet need, specifically integrated biosensors and CMOS biochip systems. First, we will review the system-level requirements of molecular diagnostics (MDx) systems and explain how they identify the unique DNA/RNA sequences of the pathogen (e.g., COVID-19 one-hour PCR test) to detect infections while achieving appropriate clinical specificity and selectivity. Next, we will discuss in detail methods by which we can design and implement MDx sensors using IC technologies. We will provide specific examples, tradeoff analysis, and manufacturing options for realizing a true CMOS MDx biochip. At the end, we will list key challenges and potential opportunities in this field."
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
BusinessWire: ON Semiconductor introduced the AR0234CS 2.3MP CMOS sensor with global shutter. The new sensor is designed for a variety of applications including machine vision cameras, AR/VR/MR headsets, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and barcode readers.
The AR0234CS captures 1080p video and single frames operating up to 120fps with industry-leading shutter efficiency.
“The need for quality image sensing is increasing, as more manufacturers are automating with vision-based expert systems,” said Gianluca Colli, VP and GM, Industrial and Consumer Sensor Division (ICSD) Group at ON Semiconductor. “That demand requires optimizing size, performance and power of the image sensor. ON Semiconductor is one of the first manufacturers to recognize and respond to this need with the AR0234CS.”
Other advanced features of the AR0234CS include: programmable regions of interest with on-chip histogram, auto exposure control and 5 x 5 statistics engine, fully integrated strobe illumination control, a flexible row and column skip mode, along with horizontal and vertical mirroring, windowing and pixel binning.
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
BusinessWire: According to Strategy Analytics, the total smartphone image sensor market witnessed a 15% YoY revenue growth in H1 2020. Sony maintains the first position in the smartphone image sensor market with 44% revenue share followed by Samsung and OmniVision. The top-three vendors captured almost 85% revenue share in the global smartphone image sensor market in H1 2020.
Jeffrey Mathews, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics says, “The image sensor market was driven by the upbeat demand for multi-camera configuration featuring 2MP and 8MP image sensors in smartphones and further boosted by the shipment of high pixel sensors such as 64MP and 108MP image sensors in H1 2020. Sony saw its market share decline in H1 2020 owing to the rising competition from Samsung, OmniVision and SK Hynix.”
Stephen Entwistle, VP of the Strategic Technologies Practice at Strategy Analytics commented, “The image sensor market growth was slowed by the impact of the pandemic on the overall smartphone market. However, the momentum around high pixel sensors and the use of multiple cameras in smartphones is expected to shape a strong growth path for the image sensor market in H2 2020.”
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
Yole Developpement has kindly permitted me to reproduce few slides from its "Imaging & LiDAR for Automotive Forum 2020" held on Sept 10 in China:
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
Framos reports that Sony launches the new polarizer sensors IMX264MZR (monochrome) and IMX264MYR (color). These 5MP sensors have a 2/3-type format and a pixel size of 3.45 µm. It reaches frame rates up to 35.7 fps at 12-bit (only) and has one ROI window. The new CMOS Pregius sensors are equipped with a four-directional polarization square pixel array which can filter light from all four direction in a single capture.
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
Omron begins selling the B5L Series embedded 3D TOF Sensor Module in Japan from September 1, and globally from October 1. The B5L Series utilizes unique optical design technology for stable measurement of 3D distance information across a wide area even under sunlight. In addition, B5L also feature specifications optimized for long periods of continuous operation to allow it to be used as an embedded sensor in various instruments. This design results in a "mechanical eye" that is capable of accurately and easily detecting the surrounding environment, which will contribute to autonomous robots being used more frequently in everyday life as well as automation of various other machinery and equipment.
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
Forza-Ametek announces a webinar "CMOS Image Sensors Signal Interfaces & Lessons Learned From System Prototyping" to be held on Oct 14, 2020:
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
2020 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) paper "Higher Quality Images for a Visible-Light CMOS Sensor by Suppressing Spatial Row-Wise Noise with an Output-Capacitor-Less, Internal Low-Dropout Regulator" by Ali E. Zadeh from University of Southern California shows a dramatic FPN reduction at the price of just 50mV supply dropout:
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
BusinessWire: Ouster announces a solid-state lidar based on its digital lidar architecture. The new ES2 will be the company's first solid-state, high-resolution, long-range digital lidar. With a $600 expected price for automotive production programs with SOP 2024 and a 200+ meter range on 10% reflective targets, the ES2 is aimed to ADAS and industrial applications.
"The ES2 sensor uses “electronic scanning” to sequentially fire an array of over ten thousand lasers printed onto a single chip. These lasers are paired with a custom digital detector array capable of counting trillions of individual photons every second.
These laser and detector arrays are the same core technology used in Ouster’s OS series spinning lidar sensors, as well as numerous consumer devices such as the iPhone and iPad Pro. With tens of thousands of lasers on the chip, each fixed on a different point in the field of view, no moving parts are required to reach the range, field of view, and resolution targets of high-performance autonomy customers."
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
Autosens publishes interviews with Aeye, Immervision, Xenomatics, and more:
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
Federal Register: Pictos files patent infringement complaint against Samsung.
"The Commission has received a complaint and a submission pursuant to § 210.8(b) of the Commission's Rules of Practice and Procedure filed on behalf of Pictos Technologies, Inc. on September 25, 2020. The complaint alleges violations of section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1337) in the importation into the United States, the sale for importation, and the sale within the United States after importation of certain digital imaging devices and products containing the same and Start Printed Page 61981components thereof. The complaint names as respondents: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. of Korea; Samsung Electronics America, Inc. of Ridgefield Park, NJ; and Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. of San Jose, CA. The complainant requests that the Commission issue a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders."
The original image sensor company Pictos started as a spin-off from Rockwell/Conexant and has been acquired and shut down later by ESS. Its not immediately clear whether the new Pictos has any relationship with the original company or its patents. Pictos.com web site delivers only one message:
Cameralabs Go to the original article...
The Canon EOS 850D / Rebel T8i is a mid-range DSLR with a 24mp APSC sensor, 7fps bursts, 4k video and a fully-articulated screen. It sits at the top of the triple-digit EOS or Rebel series, which puts it directly below the EOS 90D. Find out how they compare in my review!…
The post Canon EOS 850D Rebel T8i review appeared first on Cameralabs.
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
Samsung presents "A Low-Power 65/14nm Stacked CMOS Image Sensor" by Minho Kwon, Seunghyun Lim, Hyeokjong Lee, Il-seon Ha, Moo-young Kim, Il-Jin Seo, Suho Lee, Yongsuk Choi, Kyunghoon Kim, Hansoo Lee, Won-Woong Kim, Seonghye Park, Kyongmin Koh, Jesuk Lee, and Yongin Park at the 2020 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) to be held virtually on October 10-21.
"This paper presents a low-power stacked CMOS image sensor (CIS) in 65/14nm process. With 14nm process, we could achieve 29% less power consumption than the conventional CIS in 65/28nm process. The measured random telegraph noise (RTN) result shows the 65/14nm stacked CIS to guarantee the commercial sensor image quality even though a fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) process is three-dimension channel structure. The pixel array of the implemented chip consists of 12-mega pixels (Mp) with a dual-photodiode (2PD) in 1.4μm pixel pitch, and the sensor output provides 120 frames per second while it consumes 612mW for 12Mp image and 3Mp auto-focus data via a mobile industry processor interface (MIPI) physical layer (DPHY) up to 6.5Gbps/lane. The measured random noise is 2.2e-at 16× analog gain, and figure-of-merit (FoM) of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) achieves 0.46e-nJ."
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
Samsung presents "A 1/3-Inch 1.12μm-Pitch 13Mpixel CMOS Image Sensor with a Low-Power Readout Architecture" by Yunhong Kim, Heesung Chae, Kyung-Min Kim, Kyungtae Kim, Sukki Yoon, Kyoungmin Koh, Jesuk Lee, and Yongin Park at the 2020 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) to be held virtually on October 10-21.
"This paper presents an implementation of a CMOS image sensor with a 65 nm CMOS process. The pixel array consists of 13 Mp with 1.12 μm pixel pitch. The fabricated sensor uses 10-bit column-parallel single slope analog-to-digital converters (ADC) based on a low-power readout architecture. Furthermore, a low-power built-in self-test (BIST) is proposed to avoid test over-kills. The proposed image sensor achieves a frame rate of 30–120 frames/s, a temporal random noise of 2 e − rms , a dynamic range of 65.2dB, peak integral non-linearity of 0.18 % and peak differential non-linearity of 0.26 least-significant bits. It consumes only 99.7mW at 30 frames/s."
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
Samsung presents "A 1280×960 Dynamic Vision Sensor with a 4.95-μm Pixel Pitch and Motion Artifact Minimization" by Yunjae Suh, Seungnam Choi, Masamichi Ito, Jeongseok Kim, Youngho Lee, Jongseok Seo, Heejae Jung, Dong-Hee Yeo, Seol Namgung, Jongwoo Bong, Sehoon Yoo, Seung-Hun Shin, Doowon Kwon, Pilkyu Kang, Seokho Kim, Hoonjoo Na, Kihyun Hwang, Changwoo Shin, Jun-Seok Kim, Paul K. J. Park, Joonseok Kim, Hyunsurk Ryu, and Yongin Park at the 2020 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) to be held virtually on October 10-21.
"This paper reports a 1280×960 DVS. A 4.95-μm pixel pitch is achieved with in-pixel Cu-Cu connection and the newly designed GIDL-suppression scheme. A sequential column selection scheme and a global event-holding function are implemented to minimize motion artifacts. The power consumption per pixel of 122 nW is 1.25× smaller and the maximum readout speed of 1.3 Geps is 4.33× faster than the previous state-of-the-art."
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
Autosens publishes an interview with Wade Appelman, VP of the SensL Division at ON Semi:
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
2020 International SPAD Sensor Workshop (ISSW) papers are just published at the International Image Sensor Society web site. The workshop has been held on-line in June 2020. The list of papers is below:
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
FBK publishes an IEEE JSSC paper "A Low-Power VGA Vision Sensor With Embedded Event Detection for Outdoor Edge Applications" by Yu Zou, Massimo Gottardi, Michela Lecca, and Matteo Perenzoni. The paper is available for download here.
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
Not only image sensors are able to detect single photons with ps timing accuracy these days. Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, develops a free-space optical transmission system relying on an optical amplifier that, in principle, does not add any excess noise – in contrast to all other preexisting optical amplifiers, referred to as phase-sensitive amplifiers (PSAs). The researchers’ new concept demonstrates an unprecedented receiver sensitivity of just one photon-per-information bit at a data rate of 10Gbps.
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
SystemPlus publishes its reverse engineering of Intel L515 short-range LiDAR:
Image Sensors World Go to the original article...
TechInsights publishes a subscribers-only review of hybrid bonding progress:
Cameralabs Go to the original article...
The Sigma 105mm f2.8 DG DN Macro Art is the first macro lens in Sigma’s DN-series, designed for mirrorless cameras with Sony E or Leica L-mounts. Check out my complete review to find out how the all-new optical design measures-up!…
The post Sigma 105mm f2.8 DG DN Macro Art review appeared first on Cameralabs.