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ISSCC posts the 2014 demo of Microsoft Kinect-2 ToF sensor on Vimeo:

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This info originally appeared in a number of forums, such as this one, but it has no official confirmation. The info can be a hoax.

Said all that, it seems that Sony intends to discontinue its entire line of CCD products. The story started unfolding at the end of January with closing the production line for the complementary color filters and the Kagoshima 200mm wafer production line. Last week, Framos, one of the Sony CCD distributors, sent the following email to its customers:

"Dear Customer!

This message is to inform that SONY decided to discontinue all their CCD image sensor products! Attached please find the official letters from SONY!

The CCD End-of-Life plan of SONY is the following:
- customers need to order their last-time-buy quantities by end of Aug 2015
- SONY fab will shut-down March 2017
- deliveries can be made until March 2020

Please note: for new designs, especially with CMOS sensors we can offer in-depth technical support and are able to provide reference designs etc to you under certain conditions. Especially we are already working on reference designs of the upcoming IMX25x-series.

If there are any questions or any further need, please contact your FRAMOS account manager, or sales@framos.com as soon as possible!"

Before that, Sony reportedly sent to its customers two announcements dated by the end of January:


Thanks to NA for the info!

Update: According to Sony Semiconductor flyer dated by Feb. 4, 2015, CCD used to be manufactured at Kagoshima and Kumamoto fabs:

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Sony IMX249 low-cost global shutter sensor has already appeared in Point Grey cameras. Now Sony publishes an official IMX249 flyer. There is a difference between Point Grey's announced speed of 41fps and Sony's official 30fps at full 2.35MP resolution. However, on the sample photograph Sony states 60fps for FHD resolution:

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Omnivision patent application US20150041627 "Partitioned silicon photomultiplier with delay equalization" by Eric A. G. Webster proposes 3-wafer stacked photomultiplying imager. The top wafer has photomultiplier diodes with quenchers, the bottom wafer has the readout electronics, while the mid interposer-wafer ensures equal-length interconnects to ensure the equal delay between the PDs in each pixel, and so improve the timing resolution:

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poLinght publishes its TLens brief datasheet.

The POL10-3215 TLens Silver features:

• Suitable of 1/4-inch sensors
• Supports 3MP to 8MP resolutions
• Easy to add on camera module
• ESD and stray light protection option
• Package size: 4.8mm x 4.8mm
• Minimize additional thickness at fixed focus camera module level
• Centering accuracy < +/-0,05mm
• Response time down to 1ms
• Power consumption as low as 1mW
• Small footprint 3.2mm x 3.2mm
• Focus distance from infinity down to 10cm
• No sensitivity to gravity
• Voltage range at Bottom electrode: 0V to 5V
• Voltage at Top electrode: 0V to 40V
• Maximum applied current: 1mA
• Operating temperature from -10°C to 60°C

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Qualcomm Research publishes Youtube videos of its 8-axis video image stabilization:



and scene classification:

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Videantis and Gestigon partner to team Videantis’s low-power vision processing IP platform with Gestigon’s tracking and gesture recognition. The main aim of the cooperation is to bring gesture and pose recognition technology to the automotive market, which is rapidly adopting a wide variety of vision-based technology. More and more image sensors are entering cars, including depth-sensing technologies. These sensors can be used for skeleton tracking inside and around the car. The driver and passenger’s poses, behavior, and signals can be used for “classical” gesture control but also for more advanced, UX-focused comfort and security features.

“Videantis is the perfect partner for gestigon”, gestigon CEO, Moritz von Grotthuss, says. “Their scalable, efficient processor IP already powers millions of cars on the road, and is a great target for low-power implementations of our algorithms that enable an innovative state-of-the-art user experience. The partnership is a perfect match -- both companies excel in their field of work and have already built a significant customer network among global automotive Tier 1s and OEMs.”

Videantis products

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Broadcom patent application US20150042843 "Systems and methods for improving images" by Ike Aret Ikizyan and Noam Sorek proposes to use network connectivity to improve smartphone camera image processing:

"Systems and methods are provided for improving image accuracy and/or perceptual quality by using supplemental data from sources external to an image sensor and/or a light sensor of an imaging device without requiring users to manually enter this data. The supplemental data, for example, may include lighting condition information retrieved from databases that provide general weather information, color temperature models, images in a similar environment, control setting information of those images, statistical information of those images, and/or any other information that may be used to improve the accuracy and/or perceptual quality of an image that was or will be captured. In some aspects, if the image has not yet been captured, the supplemental data may be used by the imaging device to adjust appropriate control settings (e.g., a color balance setting, a flash setting, an aperture setting, a shutter speed setting, an exposure compensation setting, an ISO setting, a light frequency setting, a noise reduction setting, a sharpening setting, etc.) such that the image can be captured accurately and/or with higher perceptual quality. In some aspects, if the image has already been captured, the supplemental data may be used to adjust the image itself so that it accurately reflects the environment in the image and/or improves the perceptual quality.

...environment identification module 202 may determine the environment using a global positioning system (GPS) sensor, a Wi-Fi-based positioning system (WPS) sensor, a gyroscopic sensor, an accelerometer, a magnetometer, and/or other sensors. One or more of these sensors may be part of imaging device 102."


One could expect such kind of patents come from Apple, Broadcom is a surprising source for that.

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Samsung patent application US20150041940 "Image sensor and electronic device including the same" by Gae Hwang Lee, Kyu Sik Kim, and Yong Wan Jin proposes a micro color splitter instead of color filter in front of the pixels, somewhat similar to what Panasonic presented 2 years ago. Samsung's application shows nano-structures splitting the light:


Update: Incidentally, Nokia patent application US20150042850 "Apparatus and a method for imaging" by Radu Bilcu and Martin Schrader published almost simultaneously with the Samsung one. Nokia presents a hierarchical color splitter between different image sensors or parts of them:

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Image Sensors Conference, to be held in a month in London, UK, publishes an interview with one of its presenters, David Stork, Fellow and Research Director of the Computational Sensing and Imaging Group at Rambus Labs. The interview is mostly devoted to the lensless image sensor with grating instead of lens, already shown earlier on other conferences. Few quotes:

"In short, the grating produces an image blob on the sensor array that is meant for computers, not humans and unlike in a traditional camera, in our lensless smart sensor the image is computed using special algorithms. I’m particularly intrigued and encouraged by our most recent work on designing gratings and subsequent digital processing to address particular image sensing tasks such as image change detection, visual flow estimation, face detection, object tracking, people counting, and so on."

"Several facts are clear, though: our resolution is lower than that typically discussed at Image Sensors—thousands or tens of thousands of effective pixels, not millions or billions. Moreover, because of our sensor small size, we do not collect much light compromising our low-light sensitivity. We are confident that there are many large application areas for our sensors, even given these constraints."

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Among many comments on yesterday's Sony Corporate Strategy meeting, Financial Times stands out claiming that Sony will likely spin off its image sensor business in future. Here is the quote, believe it or not:

"Sony plans to make the department responsible for the Walkman brand a separate subsidiary in October. This would likely be followed by the spin-off of the device division including image sensors in the future, according to Kazuo Hirai, [Sony] chief executive."

Update: EETimes too quotes FT article on the image sensor business spin-off.

Update #2: Nikkei quotes Sony CEO intending to spin-off most businesses and keep the HQ small:

"We will spin off businesses that are currently run by the main body one by one," Hirai said. "(By leaving only departments related to management, R&D, etc to the main body), we will make small headquarters to increase the speed of making management strategies and decisions."

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TI has updated its ToF imaging web page. The new version includes a fairly detailed ToF camera system design guide, and a comparison of different 3D depth imaging approaches:

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Business Wire: MIPI Alliance introduces CSI-2 v1.3, an update to its Camera Serial Interface (CSI) spec. The new interface operates CSI-2 on either of two physical layer specs: D-PHY, which CSI-2 has used traditionally, as well as MIPI C-PHY, a new PHY that MIPI Alliance released as v1.0 in September 2014. Products may implement CSI-2 solutions using either or both PHYs in the same design.

MIPI C-PHY uses 3-phase symbol encoding of about 2.28 bits per symbol to transmit data symbols on 3-wire lanes, or “trios,” with embedded clocking, facilitating longer trace reach and maximizing camera port configurations on mobile platforms. MIPI CSI-2 v1.3 with C-PHY provides performance gains, increased bandwidth delivery of 22.7 Gbps over four lanes at 2.5 Gsps (Giga-symbols per second) for realizing higher resolution, better color depth, and higher frame rates on image sensors while providing pin compatibility with MIPI D-PHY. Popular imaging formats including 4K video at 30fps using 12 bits per pixel may be delivered using a single MIPI C-PHY lane.

CSI-2 with D-PHY v1.2 can achieve a peak transmission rate of 2.5 Gbps over a single lane or 10 Gbps over four lanes. A 12bpp, 30 FPS 4K video can be transmitted using two data lanes.

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Sony announces 4 new image sensors.

IMX290LQR and IMX291LQR are 1/2.8-inch, 2.3MP 2.9um BSI pixel CMOS sensors featuring an improved IR sensitivity and WDR modes. The new 2.9 µm BSI pixel is said to provide two or more times the sensitivity in the visible-light region and three or more times the sensitivity in the NIR region than that of the existing Sony product (IMX236LQJ). In addition, two types of WDR are provided: IMX290LQR has multiple exposure and DOL (Digital Overlap) -WDR function, while IMX291LQR has only multiple exposure WDR.

The multiple exposure-type WDR outputs one set of two or four frames with different exposure times. The gain can also be set separately for each frame in addition to the exposure time.

The DOL-type WDR function outputs the data for up to three frames with different storage times line by line. By performing special signal processing with an ISP or other device at the image sensor rear-end, this is said to improve the picture quality under low illumination compared to the multiple exposure-type WDR function.

Sony publishes quarter-resolution low-light images comparing the new sensors with the older IMX236LQJ, both shot at 0.08 lux, F1.4 lens 1080p30 mode (click to expand):

Older IMX236LQJ, gain 48dB

New IMX290LQR, gain 63dB

2.35MP IMX302LQJ is yet another member of 5.86um pixel-based global shutter sensor (Pregius) aimed to industrial and machine vision market. The sensor's speed is 64.1fps with 12b ADC.


Update: Talking about Sony global shutter sensors, IMV Europe quotes Thad Smith, director of business for image sensor products at ON Semiconductor: "IMX174 can indeed be considered a disruptive technology. The technology demonstrates the possibilities of the new charge-based pixel approach and sets a new benchmark for image quality. However, while IMX174 is a single part in the portfolio, On Semiconductor’s image sensors offer a larger range of solutions for the industrial market. This is a key differentiator." In recent months, Sony appears to release quite a few IMX174 derivatives featuring the same 5.86um global shutter pixels. And there is a 2nd generation of its global shutter pixel coming.

The 6.84MP ICX816AQG 1/1.1-inch CCD targets traffic monitoring cameras and features 3.69um pixels with high sensitivity and low smear:


Update: For some reason, as of Feb. 21, 2015, Sony has withdrawn the ICX816AQG CCD announcement. The links to it are broken.

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PR Newswire: OmniVision is collaborating with Almalence to bring DSC-like performance to mobile applications. The coupling of 10MP OV10823 and 13MP PureCel OV13850 image sensors with Almalence's computational imaging algorithms allows for the capturing of high resolution images or videos in low-light conditions.

"When using Almalence's algorithms, our high performance OV13850 PureCel image sensor can enable high quality video recording in full resolution at 30 frames per second for zero shutter lag, and also can support high frame rate 1080p HD video at 60 frames per second with electronic image stabilization," said Tehzeeb Gunja, senior partnership and business development manager at OmniVision.

1.4um OmniBSI-2 pixel OV10823 performance is augmented by Almalence's low-light enhancement technology, which can enable 10dB reduction in noise without washing out desirable image details. Cameras using super resolution can experience a 1.5 to 2x effective resolution increase. Almalence's super resolution and low-light enhancement technologies are pure software solutions.

"As a result of this technology partnership between Almalence and OmniVision, consumers can benefit from the advantages of marrying advanced hardware and software solutions," said Eugene Panich, CEO of Almalence. "Our companies have developed complementary technologies and our passions are very much aligned. We are delighted to see our computational imaging solution paired with image sensors that operate at this level of performance."

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Sony mid-term corporate strategy for FY2015-17 declares its image sensor business one of the main growth drivers. "In Devices, Sony aims to further bolster its competitive edge in the area of CMOS image sensors by investing to increase production capacity and enhance R&D."

From Sony strategy presentation:

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Pixart Q4 2014 earnings report reveals that "the revenue in 2014 Q4 decreased by 7.7% QoQ to NT$1,097.0 million. Due to favorable product mix and the appreciation of US dollar, 2014 Q4 gross margin increased to 47.8% from 46.4% in 2014 Q3." The company's investor presentation shows the segment sales proportions:

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Qualcomm Snapdragon blog presents few camera features implemented in its recent ISP pipeline. The presented features exploit modern sensors ability of taking few snapshots in a quick succession, and use it for flash and no-flash images combination, all in focus feature, and ghost-free HDR imaging. A new Optizoom feature is supposed to rival the optical zoom quality "by capturing 12 images in a burst capture, and then creating a sharper image by comparing the differences and similarities in the micro movements of the pixels you’ve captured:"


For some reason, Optizoom presented a year ago works in a different way:

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nanoLambda publishes a Youtube animation showing many possible uses for its Apollo microspectrometer:

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Aggregate.org publishes slides on ISO-less camera by Hank Dietz and Paul Eberhart from University of Kentucky presented at SPIE Electronic Imaging conference:

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Financial Times: Sony owns about 40% market share in CMOS sensors for smartphones, digital cameras and tablets, followed by roughly 16% share of OmniVision and 16% share of Samsung, according to 2014 TSR report. But Sony only ranks fifth with a 5% share in automotive image sensors.

Shigeo Ohba, GM of Sony’s image sensor business, said "We have to be No 1 in automotive sensors" by the time self-driving cars are expected to hit the roads in early to mid-2020s. Recently, Sony established a new business group targeting image sensors for cars and is actively hiring engineers. “We were latecomers in smartphone cameras but we still created this market. Now we can do the same with automotive cameras,” said Shoichi Kitayama, Sony’s GM of the automotive group.

Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai is expected to disclose his automotive image sensor plans on the strategy briefing on Wednesday.

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Modular Phones Forum: Toshiba presents its work on camera module design for Google Project Ara modular phones. Shardul Kazi, SVP from Toshiba America, says:

"We’ve been engaged in Ara program for more than a year now. Engagement started because of Toshiba’s involvement in the standards committee of MIPI UniPro, and UniPro is a backbone of the Ara phone. So we know UniPro very well. To make developers life easier we developed bridges (two types of bridges and the switch chip), so module developers can use those chips and they don’t need to learn about complexity of UniPro protocol."

So, Toshiba has started from the camera modules as Phase 1 of its Ara designs:


Toshiba has created a special web site devoted to its Ara modules progress and featuring a Youtube video with the first 5MP module:

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ST and Commissariat A L'energie Atomique Et Aux Energies Alternatives patent application "Back side illumination image sensor with low dark current" by Jean-Pierre Carrere, Patrick Gros D'aillon, Stephane Allegret-Maret, and Jean-Pierre Oddou proposes an additional conductive layer on the BSI image sensor backside to screen the back of the imager from plasma processing-introduced defects:

"The degradation comes from plasma-based treatments used during the treatments of the back side of the sensor, particularly for forming the back side metallic contact pads, of aluminum for example, and for forming the layer protecting the colored filters, which aims to protect these filters during the slicing of the sensors along the slicing lines of the semiconductor wafer.

More precisely, the plasma charges the silicon oxide-silicon nitride stack triggering a trapping of positive charges (holes) in the anti-reflective silicon nitride layer, holes which will then migrate to the interface with the substrate to create a dark current by recombination with electrons."

In order to reduce the dark current, the application proposes: "an additional layer situated above the anti-reflective layer and including at least a lower part containing hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) or hydrogenated amorphous silicon nitride (a-SiNx:H), in which the Si/N ratio of the number of silicon atoms per cubic centimeter to the number of nitrogen atoms per cubic centimeter is greater than 0.7, and preferably greater than or equal to 1.2.

The function of this additional layer is to absorb, or even to stop, ultraviolet radiation, and/or to evacuate the trapped charges in the anti-reflective layer during subsequent plasma treatments, which will therefore reduce the residual positive charges possibly trapped in the anti-reflective layer and consequently reduce the dark current.

The thickness of this lower part of the additional layer is preferably less than a few tens of nanometers, for example a hundred nanometers, or even less than ten nanometers."

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Apple patent application US20150035028 "Image sensor with buried light shield and vertical gate" by Xiaofeng Fan, Philip H. Li, Chung Chun Wan, Anup K. Sharma, Xiangli Li proposes a 2-layer stacked global shutter pixel:


The pixel is split into 2 layers: "a buried light shield 710 separates the sensing layer 702 into a first substrate layer 738 and a second substrate layer 740. The sense region 716, the storage region 712, and the pixel transistors can be in the second substrate layer 740 while the photodetector 708 resides in the first substrate layer 738. The buried light shield 710 prevents unwanted charge accumulation in the storage region 712 and in the sense region 716." The vertical transfer gate 714 is made of poly in the trench and has a contact pad 718.

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Himax reports its 2014 business results: "Revenues from CMOS image sensors also experienced significant growth in 2014 and should continue to be a fast growing product area for Himax in 2015. Sales of the Company’s 2 and 5 megapixel products were particularly strong, mainly due to robust demand from several international customers as well as from Chinese white-box customers. Looking into 2015, Himax expects its sales of 8-megapixel sensors, now the mainstream design for smartphones, to accelerate while high end 13 megapixel sensors to start mass production later in the year. This puts Himax firmly on the map as one of a small handful of companies capable of offering a comprehensive product portfolio for smartphone cameras.

In addition to the a fore-mentioned consumer applications, Himax is also making significant progress in CMOS image sensors for non-consumer applications, which typically enjoy higher margins and have relatively little direct competition. Himax already started initial shipments to a Korean automotive end customer and is actively engaging more module houses to penetrate into Chinese before-market-installation automotive applications. As the Company grows sensor sales for automotive and other non-consumer applications and continues to turn the bulk of its CMOS image sensor sales from 2 and 5 megapixels to higher end, higher margin 8 and 13 megapixels, Himax expects its CMOS image sensor business to accelerate in 2015."

"CMOS Image sensor sales nearly doubled year over year."

"Furthermore, the Company continues to partner with numerous industry leading companies using its cutting edge and industry-dominant wafer level optics, or WLO, for the development of ...technologies of the future, namely array cameras. ...To meet the anticipated demand growth for its LCOS and WLO products, the Company is expanding its production capacity starting in Q1 2015."

From Himax Feb 2015 investor presentation:

Himax customers

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DPReview: Canon exhibits 120MP, 2.2um pixel image sensor prototype at CP+ photography expo in Yokohama, Japan. To boost the sensor speed, Canon utilizes "parallel processing, which reads signals at high speed from multiple pixels." It seems to be the same sensor that Canon announced 4.5 years ago (see the official announcement here).

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Euronext TV: CMOSIS CEO, Luc Demey, rang the closing bell at Euronext Stock Exchange in Brussels, Belgium:

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EETimes publishes an interview with Pierre Cambou, one of the authors of Yole's recent report on CMOS sensor market. Yole predicts that the next trend will likely be 3-D Hybrid CMOS image sensors that by-pass the TSVs for high precision direct copper-to-copper wafer bonding, allowing per-pixel interconnects between the wafers:


Another interesting point is that Yole seems to be too conservative estimating the image sensor market growth in its reports:

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GlobeNewswire: FLIR is partnering with TowerJazz to manufacture its next generation IR technology to smartphone, security, industrial and other markets. "The partnership between TowerJazz and FLIR has been excellent. Together, we have rapidly implemented a state of the art manufacturing capability in Newport Beach, CA. The Newport Beach site can facilitate commercial, ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations), and more recently Category 1A & 1B "Trusted" services through our subsidiary, Jazz Semiconductor Trusted Foundry (JSTF), as accredited by the U.S. Department of Defense. In particular, we developed an industry leading capability for advanced micro thermal pixel array production," said David Howard, Executive Director and Fellow, TowerJazz.

These micro thermal pixel arrays include novel, high density pixels that enable FLIR to offer more powerful sensors with higher resolution in compact form factors. "When we combine the micro thermal arrays with integrated FLIR wafer level optics, software and MSX technology with TowerJazz process and manufacturing capability, we are able to deliver breakthrough product performance and value," said Tom Surran, COO at FLIR Systems.

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Image Sensors and Imaging Systems 2015 conference announces the best paper and the best student paper at its Plenary Session today.

The Best Paper Award is "2.2um BSI CMOS image sensor with two layer photodetector", H. Sasaki, A. Mochizuki, Y. Sugiura, R. Hasumi, K. Eda, Y. Egawa, H. Yamashita, K. Honda, H. Ootani, T. Asami, TOSHIBA CORP., T. Ohguro, H. Momose, Y. Toyoshima, TOSHIBA MATERIALS CO Ltd.

The Best Student Paper Award goes to "Multi-camera synchornization code implemented on USB3-based FPGA platform", R. Sousa, Univ. da Madeira, M. Wäny, P. Santos, AWAIBA Lda, M. Diaz, Univ da Madeira and Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute.

Thanks to AD for the info!

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