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BusinessInsider quotes TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo forecasting that as many as 170m Android phones with under-display fingerprint sensor will be sold next year: "All main Android brands currently treat [fingerprint-on-display] as the important function to differentiate themselves from the iPhone."

Synaptics has been first on the market with its optical fingerprint solution developed in cooperation with Oxi. However, the cheaper next generation devices are predicted to use neither Synaptics nor Oxi technology. Instead, Goodix and Silead are predicted to take the lead:

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Autosens publishes a short video about Oryx LiDAR based on nano-antenna imaging in 10um band:

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DeviceSpecifications quotes Chinese-language site ITHome saying that HMD Global, the owner of Nokia smartphone brand, works on 5-camera smartphone. The company has already manufactured a small-scale production batch in April 2018. The site sources were able to take a picture of the back side of the new Nokia-branded phone:

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BGR reports that Intel-written part has been found inside Android "Add face authentication framework" code. This supports a rumor that the upcoming Google Pixel 3 smartphone might use a Realsense-based FaceID camera.

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Globenewswire: Himax announces a collaboration with MediaTek and Megvii, the Chinese developer of the world’s biggest open platform of face recognition known as Face++, to offer what it says the industry’s first Active Stereo Camera (ASC) 3D sensing reference design targeting facial recognition and secure online payment for Android smartphone.

The ASC 3D sensing solution combines MediaTek’s stereo matching depth engine, Megvii’s Face++ AI-based computer vision algorithm with Himax’s projector, sensor and laser driver. The critical technologies provided by Himax include DOE and collimator utilizing its world leading WLO technology in the projector, a high efficiency laser driver IC, high precision active alignment for the projector assembly, and two high sensitivity near-infrared CMOS image sensors in the receiver. Compared with the structured light technology, the ASC is said to be a lower cost 3D sensing solution for mass market smartphones for facial recognition, secure online payment and AI-based photo enhancement.

The key features of the ASC 3D sensing solution include:

• Customized infrared projector with patterned DOE and collimator: Between 7,000 - 10,000 invisible dots to build sophisticated 3D depth map
• High QE sensor at 940nm band
• Superior sensing capability in both indoor/outdoor environments
• Glass broken detection: Patented glass broken detection mechanism enabled by tailor made laser driver in the projector whereby laser is shut down instantaneously in the event of broken glass in the projector
• Eye safety: Certified for IEC 60825 Class 1, the international standard governing laser product safety under all conditions of normal use with naked eyes
• Compact form factor and power-efficient

“We are pleased to partner with MediaTek and Megvii. This strong alliance ensures that 3D sensing is affordable for Android mass market and can be easily adopted by smartphone makers to create exciting user experience. I believe ASC will facilitate a broader adoption of 3D sensing on Android smartphone during 2019,” said Jordan Wu, President and CEO of Himax.

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Teledyne e2v announces that its Emerald 12MP and 16MP CMOS sensors for optical inspection and factory automation have now gone into mass production and are available for high volume purchase.

These two sensors are members of Teledyne e2v’s Emerald family and feature a small 2.8μm low-noise global shutter pixel, which is produced using a 110nm wafer manufacturing process from TowerJazz in its Arai, Japan fab. The sensors special features include HDR modes with up to 120dB DR and also a unique ROI mode which allows multiple images to be captured, under different exposure conditions, in a single high resolution shot.

Rafael Romay, VP of Professional Imaging at Teledyne e2v, said “We are delighted that Emerald 12M and 16M, the original members of our Emerald sensor family, are entering mass production. We’ve recently expanded this successful family, with the addition of Emerald 67M, which provides customers with high speed and high resolution.”

Dr. Avi Strum, TowerJazz SVP and GM of CMOS Image Sensor Business Unit said, “Working together for over a decade, Teledyne e2v and TowerJazz have leveraged our combined expertise to bring to market top notch industrial sensors. The Emerald family is the newest, most advanced one based on our global shutter offering in 110nm with a state of the art small pixel of 2.8um. We look forward to further collaboration with Teledyne e2v to serve the growing machine vision market.”

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Autosens publishes a video of Omnivision CTO Boyd Fowler presentation of Nyxel IR sensing technology at May 2018 conference in Detroit:

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Calcalist: Mantis Vision has completed the acquisition of Israeli AI startup BrainVu Ltd. The financial terms of the acquisition were not publicly disclosed.

Founded in 2016, BrainVu’s develops machine vision-based technology to determine a person's mental state from a stream of smartphone camera images. The technology combines eye movement tracking and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri), which measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. The “unique physiological biomarkers in eye dynamics” can help identify mental states such as alertness, attention, stress and mental effort.

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Counterpoint Research: "Almost 42% of smartphones sold globally in July 2018 sported two or more rear camera (dual+) sensors and this dual+ camera sensors adoption in smartphones is estimated to grow to 60% of total smartphone sales by the end of 2018."

• In just 12 months, dual+ camera penetration has gone from 15% to 42% and in 24 months from 3% to 42%.
• The new affordable premium “$300-$599” & high-tier “$200-$299” segments have grown the fastest adopting dual cameras.
• The mid-premium “$600-$700” has seen lower than expected adoption due to iPhone 8 but this adoption is way higher in Android smartphones.
• The super-premium “800+” segment is approaching ~100% penetration.
• OnePlus is leading the charge, closely followed by Huawei and with Apple at 49%.
• Google still has no dual cameras on its flagship Pixel phones and were relying on the stellar image quality thus far. However, with the premium segment heating up with dual camera sensors, Google will be under pressure to integrate this into their upcoming flagships.
• OEMs will also be keen to incorporate specialty cameras in order to stand out from the current crop of dual camera smartphones i.e. like Huawei has done with its P20 Pro by incorporating a stand alone black and white sensor.

Via IFNews

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The Korea Herald reports that "Most major smartphone makers, including Samsung Electronics, Apple and LG Electronics, are reportedly preparing to roll out smartphones fitted with three rear-facing camera modules in a bid to step ahead in the premium segment.

On the price front, triple-lens camera modules are more expensive than the single- or dual-lens counterparts.

If a single-lens camera module costs, say, US$10 per unit to produce, then the dual- and triple-lens camera modules cost US$30 and US$50, respectively."

Samsung says that "around 10 percent of its smartphones next year are likely to embrace the tri-camera system to provide consumers differentiating features."

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PRNewswire: ActLight, the developer of Dynamic PhotoDiodes (DPDs), announces that it has signed an agreement with a top semiconductor company for the integration and licensing of the DPD into their ASIC for vital signs monitoring, to be used in the next generation of wearable devices.

"The demand for vital signs monitoring sensors is growing at an accelerated pace with a need for innovative sensor technologies," said Serguei Okhonin, ActLight Co-Founder and CEO. "The collaboration with this prestigious semiconductor company is expected to deliver to the market the new, world-class sensing solution that will enhance the vital signs monitoring experience of the wearable device's users."

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TrendForce reports that "The development of fingerprint sensor technologies has been previously restricted by low yield rate and insufficient investment from the supply chain, says TrendForce. However, with the increasing demand for fingerprint sensors from smartphone vendors like Vivo, the design houses have invested heavily to increase yield rates and seek more cost-effective solutions. The cost of the optical in-display fingerprint sensor of Synaptics was US$12~15 each in 2017, but has a chance to decrease to lower than US$8 in 2019, as Goodix, Silead and other companies in turn enter the field. At that time, brands may also embed in-display fingerprint sensors in their mid and high-end models, instead of only in flagships, so as to fit in the design of full-screen."

For some reason, TrendForce does not mention that Synaptics has stopped its optical fingerprint R&D.

"3D sensing technology is still favored by flagships of major brands, and has been constantly improved in terms of costs, design, and algorithm. In addition to Apple’s large-scale adoption of Face ID in 2019, major Android brands will also adopt 3D face recognition in their flagship models. In the long run, 3D sensing will be embedded in middle and high-end smartphones, while 2D face recognition will penetrate into the middle and low-end segments which are more sensitive to costs."

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"3D Imaging based on Depth Measurement Technologies" preprint by Ni Chen, Chao Zuo, Edmund Y. Lam, and Byoungho Lee from Seoul National University, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, and The University of Hong Kong reviews some of 3D imaging techniques:

"This paper presents an overview of 3D imaging from depth measurements, and provides a summary of the connection between these the ray-based and wavefront-based 3D imaging techniques."

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Samsung shows how face recognition can be used to control smart home devices:

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Japanese Journal of Applied Physics publishes a paper "Photosensing circuit using thin-film transistors for retinal prosthesis" by Keisuke Tomioka, Kohei Miyake, Keigo Misawa, Kohei Toyoda, Toshio Ishizaki, and Mutsumi Kimura from Ryukoku University, Otsu, Japan.

"A photosensing circuit using thin-film transistors (TFTs) for a retinal prosthesis has been developed. First, the TFTs that are low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) TFTs are fabricated on a transparent substrate, which enables us to build an epiretinal implantation system without using any extracorporeal cameras. Then, the photosensing circuit is fabricated by connecting a p/i/n-type phototransistor and a ring oscillator, which provides stimulating current pulses with an oscillation frequency dependent on light illuminance. In particular, the device structure of the p/i/n-type phototransistor is designed well on the basis of device physics, and the configuration of the photosensing circuit on the basis of device characteristics. Subsequently, a wireless power transfer system is architected by magnetic resonance coupling. Finally, a retinal prosthesis is produced by assembling the photosensing circuit and wireless power transfer system, and the stimulating performance is confirmed in an in vitro experiment, which suggests a future possibility of this retinal prosthesis."

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EETimes reports that EEMBC consortium develops ADASMark to compare different ADAS processors between them. The new ADASMark appears to be heavily biased toward image processing with less emphasis on Radars and Lidars:

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Ouster releases a software update that adds an IR camera functionality to its LiDAR. The company co-founder Angus Pacala writes: "Our OS-1 lidar now outputs fixed resolution depth images, signal images, and ambient images in real time, all without a camera. The data layers are perfectly spatially correlated, with zero temporal mismatch or shutter effects, and have 16 bits per pixel and linear photo response.

The OS-1’s optical system has a larger aperture than most DSLRs, and the photon counting ASIC we developed has extreme low light sensitivity so we’re able to collect ambient imagery even in low light conditions. The OS-1 captures both the signal and ambient data in the near infrared, so the data closely resembles visible light images of the same scenes, which gives the data a natural look and a high chance that algorithms developed for cameras translate well to the data.

Anyone who has worked on lidar and visual odometry will grasp the value of the redundancy embodied in this result. Lidar odometry struggles in geometrically uniform environments like tunnels and highways, while visual odometry struggles with textureless and poorly lit environments. The OS-1’s camera/lidar fusion provides a multi-modal solution to this long standing problem.

It’s results like these that make us confident that well fused lidar and camera data are much more than the sum of their parts, and we expect further convergence between lidars and cameras in the future."

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SystemPlus Consulting compares ambient light sensors (ALS) and proximity sensors design in several generations of Apple and Samsung smartphones: Samsung Galaxy S7, S8, and S9 and Apple iPhone 7, 8, and X:

"Samsung has chosen to combine the two sensors in a single component, whereas Apple made the choice to keep them separate. Over the years, Samsung has improved the performance without changing its packaging footprint. Apple has kept the same supplier, STMicroelectronics, for its proximity sensor. However it has added features to each new generation, as in the latest the iPhone X, where the proximity sensor is combined with a flood illuminator. In this new iPhone the ambient light sensor is still supplied by ams, but has a multi-spectral feature."

Samsung Galaxy S9 combined proximity/ALS sensor

Apple iPhoe X multi-spectral ALS

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Teledyne e2v announces Snappy 2MP image sensor for barcode reading and other 2D scanning applications. The sensor uniquely combines full HD resolution, a 2.8μm low-noise global shutter and advanced features for fast and economic decoding, all within a small optical format. From pixel performance, to integrated real-time features, every aspect of the Snappy sensor has been optimised to enable fast and accurate scanning of 1D and 2D barcodes.

Gareth Powell, Marketing Manager at Teledyne e2v, said, “Snappy 2MP is the first in a range of innovative sensors specifically aimed at barcode reading and is designed to empower handheld, mobile or fixed readers and automatic identification cameras with better than ever performance. The new sensors feature our patented Fast-Exposure mode, which ensures that the first image frame is correctly exposed to enable the fastest possible identification and decoding by the image processing system, even in diverse or rapidly changing light conditions.”

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Image Sensors America conference publishes an interview with Roger Melen, Senior Advisor, Toyota InfoTechology Center. One interesting quote:

Q: What do you see as the top collective challenges for those working on image sensors for automotive applications?

A: I think in very high-resolution sensors dynamic range and frame rate performance are slowly improving but much more performance may be required by future vehicles.

Omnivision Senior Director, Eiichi Funatsu, is to deliver presentation "Super High Sensitivity CMOS Image Sensors Technologies." His Q&A session quotes:

"...the cameras should have even better vision than human eyes, should be always working, with very low power, and with some intelligence. CMOS Image Sensor technology evolution should contribute to the realization of these features and make the human life more affluent and convenient.

Our Super High Sensitivity CMOS Image Sensor is a good milestone in the process of the evolution."

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PRNewswire: LG Innotek is entering the thermal imaging infrared camera module business. The company is accelerating the in-house development of core technologies from sensors to module design and production process to develop thermal imaging camera modules.

LG Innotek is confident that it will be able to achieve world-class quality in the design and production of thermal imaging camera modules. This is because the structure and manufacturing process of this module is similar to those of the smartphone camera module. The company has been the number one in the global smartphone camera module market for 7 consecutive years.

Park Jong-seok, CEO of the company, said, "We will continue to release competitive thermal imaging camera modules so that they can be utilized more widely in various areas."

The company believes that improving the performance and lowering the price will expand the market rapidly as the utility value of the thermal camera has already been proven. The first goal is to expand the market from military application to non-military applications such as home appliances, automobiles, and drones. The thermal imaging camera module can be applied to ADAS as well as to autonomous driving system to improve driving safety.

LG Innotek is expanding its cooperation with domestic venture companies to secure thermal imaging sensor technology. Recently, the company started the joint development of the next generation thermal imaging sensor together with Truwin.

According to Yole Developpement, the global thermal imaging camera market is expected to grow from $3,325m in 2018 to $4,385m in 2022.

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Rambus lensless sensor partners keep working on the applications for the small and cheap sensor. MPDI paper "Hand Tracking and Gesture Recognition Using Lensless Smart Sensors" by Lizy Abraham, Andrea Urru, Niccolò Normani, Mariusz P. Wilk, Michael Walsh, and Brendan O’Flynn from Cork University, Irland,

"The Lensless Smart Sensor (LSS) developed by Rambus, Inc. is a low-power, low-cost visual sensing technology that captures information-rich optical data in a tiny form factor using a novel approach to optical sensing. The spiral gratings of LSS diffractive grating, coupled with sophisticated computational algorithms, allow point tracking down to millimeter-level accuracy. This work is focused on developing novel algorithms for the detection of multiple points and thereby enabling hand tracking and gesture recognition using the LSS. The algorithms are formulated based on geometrical and mathematical constraints around the placement of infrared light-emitting diodes (LEDs) on the hand. The developed techniques dynamically adapt the recognition and orientation of the hand and associated gestures. A detailed accuracy analysis for both hand tracking and gesture classification as a function of LED positions is conducted to validate the performance of the system. Our results indicate that the technology is a promising approach, as the current state-of-the-art focuses on human motion tracking that requires highly complex and expensive systems. A wearable, low-power, low-cost system could make a significant impact in this field, as it does not require complex hardware or additional sensors on the tracked segments."

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PCO kindly sent me a slide from their presentation comparing sCMOS sensors from BAE (Fairchild Imaging) and GPixel. BAE manufactures its sensors at TSMC, while GPixel uses TowerJazz foundry.


Thanks to GH for the slide!

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EETimes' Junko Yoshida publishes an article about EPFL spinoff Actlight. The company offers its Dynamic Photodiode (DPD) technology for licensing by other companies. "Serguei Okhonin, Actlight's CEO, told EE Times that his company recently picked up “one of the top five semiconductor companies” as its first licensee.

Instead of using DC bias, the DPD operates at pulsed voltages: the applied voltage is switched from reverse to forward bias. This forward bias induces a large forward current after a time delay, so called triggering time, which depends on the light intensity. This way, we measure the delay time of the large forward current instead of the small photocurrent magnitude.

Because of the large output signal, ActLight claims that DPD needs no amplifier. It can be directly connected to digital circuits.

ActLight expects the first ASIC integrated with the company’s photodiode to emerge in 2019, indicating that there are two or three OEMs already taking a closer look."

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Isorg publishes a corporate video about the company and its products:

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Esticast: The global 3D Camera market was valued at 1.31b in 2017, and is projected to reach $12b by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 35.5% from 2017 to 2025. In 2017, stereo vision 3D camera segment held a considerably large share of the overall market:

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ECN publishes an interview with Leo Bai, CM of Artificial Intelligent BU at SmartSens "How Is Image Sensing Technology Moving Forward?". Few quotes:

"With rapid development of AI and MV technology, there will be a growing number of new applications that need CIS to get direct data for processing and analyzing. This will present much broader market opportunities for image sensors than ever before.

In order to meet the market needs, SmartSens has developed cost-effective, high-performance global shutter CIS for emerging AI and MV applications, i.e. the world's first BSI-based global shutter CMOS image sensor family (SmartGS). Because of its excellent signal-to-noise ratio, high sensitivity, and dynamics, the SmartGS image sensors are widely used in FA, code reader, intelligent sensing, and other fields.

SC031GS is the world’s first commercial-grade 300,000-pixel global shutter CMOS image sensor based on BSI pixel technology. BSI technology makes SC031GS more sensitive. Derived from high-end industrial CIS, SmartGS design technology guarantees low system noise, high-shutter efficiency, single-frame HDR, among other features. Because of these high performances, SC031GS is becoming popular in intelligent sensing (drone, robotics) and IoT industries. Designed for intelligent applications like face to vSLAM, optical flow, 2D-decoder, and gesture recognition, SC031GS’s design is fully considered about system solution. So, SC031GS is better suited for intelligent applications than other competitors."

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Elektor publishes an interview with MEMS Drive CEO Colin Kwan. Few interesting quotes:

"Currently, OIS technology is mainly implemented in high-end phones, which is less than 20% of the cellphone market. Yet OIS technology is gradually penetrating the middle and low-end cellphone markets as people have higher requirements for photo taking.

OIS actuator technology in mobile phones has been mainly dominated by a few voice coil motor (VCM) suppliers. However, none has been able to provide all round shake compensation. No matter it is VCM shifting lens or tilting lens, the roll axis is not able to be compensated through lens movement. MEMS Drive saw this as an opportunity and came out with a MEMS OIS actuator, the world’s first five-axis (i.e., pitch, yaw, roll, x/y translation) optical image stabilization in mobile phones.

MEMS OIS is a MEMS actuator that sits underneath the image sensor. By moving the image sensor in the x/y plane in a very fast and precise way, MEMS OIS counteracts undesired vibrations that cause image blur while taking a photo. It makes fundamental changes on a camera module’s mechanical systems and breaks through the limitations of conventional VCM OIS, which works through lens movement. MEMS OIS has sub-micron accuracy and in-position compensation within 10 ms. It is ultra-low power (e.g., 50-plus times lower than traditional VCM OIS), which is extremely beneficial for mobile phones and other portable devices. MEMS OIS also has competitive advantages when applied in dual/triple cameras since it causes no magnetic interference."

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iFixit teardown of Magic Leap One glasses reveals a lot of image sensing components inside:

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pco.dicam C1 combines image intensifier with 4.2MP sCMOS sensor. The intensifier is used to implement a very short global shutter, down to few tens of ns:

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