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Omnivision publishes an Autosens 2020 presentation "High Performance Automotive Image Sensors using CMOS Wafer Stacking Technology" by Boyd Fowler, the company's CTO:

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BusinessWire: OmniVision announces the 1/1.34-inch OV64A sensor with 64MP resolution with the largest pixel size in its class, at 1.008 micron. It is aimed to the wide and ultrawide main cameras in high end smartphones. Additionally, the OV64A features 3-exposure, 4-cell HDR with on-chip combination and tone mapping, as well as a fast frame rate, which work in tandem to eliminate motion artifacts and produce the best 64MP SNR. This sensor also offers a 2- and 3-exposure staggered HDR timing option.

“TSR estimates there will be 322 million image sensors with 50MP or higher resolution shipped to smartphone manufacturers in 2021, which presents a huge opportunity for OmniVision’s growing 64MP portfolio,” said Arun Jayaseelan, staff marketing manager at OmniVision. “Compared with our 0.8 micron 64MP image sensor, the OV64A’s 1.0 micron pixel size provides a more than 60% sensitivity increase, allowing for the greatest possible performance in low light conditions.”

Built on OmniVision’s PureCel Plus-S stacked die technology, the OV64A integrates an on-chip, 4-cell (4C) color filter array and hardware remosaic, which provides high quality, 64MP Bayer output, or 8K video, in real time. In low light conditions, this sensor can use near-pixel binning to output a 16MP image for 4K2K video with four times the sensitivity, yielding 2.0um-equivalent low-light performance for preview and video.

Output formats include 64MP at 15 fps, 16MP with 4C binning at 60 fps, and 4K2K video at 120 fps with the extra pixels needed for EIS. This sensor also offers 8K video at 30 fps, 1080p at 240 fps and 720p at 480 fps. Other features include CPHY and DPHY interfaces, and 4C half-shield phase detection for fast autofocus support.

OV64A samples are available now, and mass production is expected in Q4.

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 TI presentation "Solving the Key Design Challenges of Automotive Cameras" explains the importance of clean analog supplies for low row noise:

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Digitimes reports that "Demand for high-end CIS components has weakened in the wake of the US trade sanctions against Huawei. But suppliers are ramping up CIS shipments to the midrange segment to meet growing demand from other Chinese handset vendors, such as Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi who are keen on cannibalizing Huawei in their domestic market.

Major CMOS image sensor (CIS) suppliers including Samsung Electronics and OmniVision reportedly have been pushing sales of midrange CIS components to Chinese handset brands due to increasing market demand, according to industry sources."

IFNews quotes Credite Suisse that optical fingreprint sensor companies focus their development efforts in 3 key areas:

• integration optical fingeprint sensors into LCD displays
• large area sensing for OLED displays
• In-cell TFT sensors

Credit Suisse believes that Novatek and Egis/FocalTech are ahead of others (Synaptics and Goodix) on in-cell TFT sensor integration.

M14 Intelligence publishes an interview with Robosense VP LeiLei Shinohara talking about the price pressure on LiDAR market:

"Regarding the pricing part, at least in the near future like 2022 or 2023, the acceptable pricing for the OEM customers could be much less than 1000 USD. However, we have also received requests from most of our customers for LiDARs in the price range of 500 USD or even lower. We have also seen that the customer losses interest if the price of LiDARs is more than 1000 USD. Hence, we expect that for bigger volume deals, the price could reach somewhere below 500 USD."

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 Yole Developpement has kindly permitted me publishing few slides from "3D Sensing for Consumer Forum 2020" held in China on Sept. 10, 2020:

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MDPI paper "A Review of the State of the Art in Non-Contact Sensing for COVID-19" by by William Taylor, Qammer H. Abbasi, Kia Dashtipour, Shuja Ansari, Syed Aziz Shah, Arslan Khalid, and Muhammad Ali Imran from Glasgow and Conentry Universities, UK shows that most of the diagnostic approaches rely on image sensors in one form or another:

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MDPI paper "A Review of the State of the Art in Non-Contact Sensing for COVID-19" by by William Taylor, Qammer H. Abbasi, Kia Dashtipour, Shuja Ansari, Syed Aziz Shah, Arslan Khalid, and Muhammad Ali Imran from Glasgow and Conentry Universities, UK shows that most of the diagnostic approaches rely on image sensors in one form or another:

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 BusinessWire: Velodyne and RoboSense (Suteng Innovation Technology Co., Ltd.) have entered a long‑term global cross-licensing relationship encompassing a broad range of 360° surround-view lidar sensors. It covers both existing and future patents of both companies. Velodyne and RoboSense have also agreed to dismiss all the current legal proceedings in the U.S and China that exist between the two companies.

Yahoo: Ford owns 7.6% of Velodyne. Velodyne announced inaugural trading at NADAQ on Sept. 30:

Luminar's recent investor presentation shows the company's advances:

Digitimes reports that LeddarTech "sees strong prospects for flash LiDAR, according to Clive Szeto, general manager for LeddarTech Asia.

For flash LiDAR modules used in low-speed vehicles, demand in the China market is taking off, Szeto said. For example, large e-commerce operators Alibaba and JD.com have already set up fleets of autonomous logistics/delivery vehicles to replace manned vehicles."

Analog Devices presents its LiDAR prototyping platform:

M14 Intelligence publishes an interview with Florian Petit, Co-Founder of Blickfeld. Few quotes:

Our technology offers various distinctive features:

• Our patented MEMS mirrors have dimensions of more than 10 millimeters diameter, capable of detecting even weakly reflecting objects at a distance of more than 180 meters
• Our coaxial setup minimizes background light and produces a remarkably high signal-to-noise ratio, which benefits the range
• The product Cube offers a wide FOV of the car giving 360-degree coverage with 4 to 6 Cubes
• The long detection range of 250 meters 
• They are compact in size and low in energy consumption, consuming each below 10 W typically and about 15 W max
• They are long-range, feature a wide FOV, and a high frame rate, and produce high definition point clouds

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Yole Developpement kindly allowed me to publish few slides from its "Imaging & LiDAR for Automotive Forum 2020" held in China in Sept 2020:

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 IFNews quotes Credit Suisse saying:

• Samsung CIS business is growing, both 300mm and 200mm wafer-based
• TSMC 40nm process supply is tight due to high demand of image sensors
• Possible SMIC blacklisting would impact Omnivision and Sony production

Credit Suisse estimates that smartphones with 4+ cameras capture more than 30% of the market in Q2 2020:

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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."

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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.

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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.”

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Yole Developpement has kindly permitted me to reproduce few slides from its "Imaging & LiDAR for Automotive Forum 2020" held on Sept 10 in China:

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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.

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Forza-Ametek announces a webinar "CMOS Image Sensors Signal Interfaces & Lessons Learned From System Prototyping" to be held on Oct 14, 2020:

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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."

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 Autosens publishes interviews with Aeye, Immervision, Xenomatics, and more:

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 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:

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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."

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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."

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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."

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 Autosens publishes an interview with Wade Appelman, VP of the SensL Division at ON Semi:

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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:

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In the new concept from Chalmers, information is encoded onto a signal wave, which along with a pump wave at different frequency generates a conjugated wave (known as an idler) in a nonlinear medium. These three waves are launched together into the free space. At the receiving point, after capturing the light in an optical fiber, the PSA amplifies the signal using a regenerated pump wave. The amplified signal is then detected in a conventional receiver.

“This approach fundamentally results in the best possible sensitivity of any pre-amplified optical receiver and also outperforms the all other current state-of-the-art receiver technologies,” says Peter Andrekson. The system uses a simple modulation format encoded with a standard error correction code and a coherent receiver with digital signal processing for signal recovery. This method is straightforwardly scalable to much higher data rates if needed. It also operates at room temperature, meaning it can be implemented in space terminals and not only on the ground.

The paper is publishes in Nature: "One photon-per-bit receiver using near-noiseless phase-sensitive amplification" by Ravikiran Kakarla, Jochen Schröder & Peter A. Andrekson 

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