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University of Melbourne and Australian National Fabrication Facility publish AIP paper "A single sensor based multispectral imaging camera using a narrow spectral band color mosaic integrated on the monochrome CMOS image sensor" by Xin He, Yajing Liu, Kumar Ganesan, Arman Ahnood, Paul Beckett, Fatima Eftekhari, Dan Smith, Md Hemayet Uddin, Efstratios Skafidas, Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas, and Ranjith Rajasekharan Unnithan.

"We demonstrate a single sensor based three band multispectral camera using a narrow spectral band red–green–blue color mosaic in a Bayer pattern integrated on a monochrome CMOS sensor. The narrow band color mosaic is made of a hybrid combination of plasmonic color filters and a heterostructured dielectric multilayer. The demonstrated camera technology has reduced cost, weight, size, and power by almost n times (where n is the number of bands) compared to a conventional multispectral camera."

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Canon and EPFL publish OSA Optics Express paper "High fill-factor miniaturized SPAD arrays with a guard-ring-sharing technique" by Kazuhiro Morimoto and Edoardo Charbon.

"We present a novel guard-ring-sharing technique to push the limit of SPAD pixel miniaturization, and to demonstrate the operation of SPAD arrays with a 2.2 µm-pitch, the smallest ever reported. Device simulation and preliminary tests suggest that the optimized device design ensures the electrical isolation of SPADs with guard-ring sharing. 4×4 SPAD arrays with two parallel selective readout circuits are designed in 180 nm CMOS technology. SPAD characteristics for the pixel pitch of 2.2, 3, and 4 µm are systematically measured as a function of an active diameter, active-to-active distance, and excess bias. For a 4 µm-pitch, the fill factor is 42.4%, the maximum PDP 33.5%, the median DCR 2.5 cps, the timing jitter 88 ps, and the crosstalk probability is 3.57%, while the afterpulsing probability is 0.21%. Finally, we verified the feasibility of the proposed technique towards compact multi-megapixel 3D-stacked SPAD arrays."

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Scitechdaily publishes more info about EPFL and Canon 1MP SPAD sensor:

“It’s something I’d been dreaming of for a long time,” says Edoardo Charbon, an EPFL professor and head of the Advanced Quantum Architecture Laboratory in EPFL’s School of Engineering. “MegaX is the culmination of over 15 years of research on single photon avalanche diodes (SPADs), which are photodetectors used in next-generation image-sensor technology.”


“MegaX lets you increase the dynamic range substantially, far beyond what you can do with a high-definition camera,” says Charbon:


The current MegaX camera has 9µm pixels. “Our team is already working on a next-generation MegaX with a pixel size of 2.2 µm,” adds Charbon. “Our goal isn’t necessarily to make MegaX work like a conventional camera, but rather to create a 4D camera” – the three standard dimensions plus time – “with as many pixels as possible, in order to achieve a higher resolution.”

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Sony adds two 1080p sensors to its lineup for security applications - IMX482 with 5.8um pixels and IMX462 with 2.9um pixels:

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Samsung publishes a promotional video explaining its ISOCELL pixel advantages:

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SecurityInfoWatch: Less than 4 years after establishing, Bosch and Sony security partnership ends. Danielle VanZandt, industry analyst for security at research firm Frost & Sullivan, says:

“While Bosch found ways to keep itself relevant during the rapid rise of Hikvision, Dahua, and Axis Communications by keeping its cameras priced well, feature-rich, and improving image quality, Sony did not appear to follow the same trajectory. Rather, Sony focused more on image quality only and did not seem to consider analytics inclusion or other features that other camera manufacturers moved to include as a new standard. As such, when customers looked between the two brands (even if it was coming from the same sales force), Bosch cameras would win out due to these additional features and sometimes replace Sony cameras within existing deployments.”

This is quite a strange statement, considering that at the time of the partnership establishment, the companies' joint PR stated:

"Within the scope of the partnership, Sony will bring its leading expertise in video image quality and performance, while Bosch will add an extensive set of robust video analytics at the edge to interpret data as well as innovative technologies to achieve highly efficient bitrates and minimum storage requirements. "This partnership will revolutionize the video security industry since it combines the unique technological expertise and strengths of two leading companies in the field of video security applications. Customers can prosper from Sony's superior image quality, like its 4K solutions, combined with Bosch's bitrate management and video analytics," says Toru Katsumoto, Deputy President of Imaging Products and Solutions, Sector President of Professional Products Group, Sony Corporation."

SecurityToday reports that Sony exits the branded security camera business.

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Polight announces that it has raised approximately NOK 40M (approx $3.84M) through a private placement. The Private Placement took place through an accelerated bookbuilding process managed by ABG Sundal Collier ASA and Arctic Securities AS as joint bookrunners. The net proceeds from the Private Placement will be used to finance further growth of the Company and general corporate purposes.

The company also plans a subsequent offering of up to approximately NOK 10M at the same subscription price as in the Private Placement.

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EPIC Photonics publishes an online meeting on automotive LiDAR including presentations from Ibeo, LeddarTech, JENOPTIK, Light Tec, imec, SMART Photonics, and Hamamatsu:

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Phys.org publishes an article about ELPF and Canon paper in OSA Optica "Megapixel time-gated SPAD image sensor for 2D and 3D imaging applications" by Kazuhiro Morimoto, Andrei Ardelean, Ming-Lo Wu, Arin Can Ulku, Ivan Michel Antolovic, Claudio Bruschini, and Edoardo Charbon. A similar paper has been posted in Arxiv.org a couple of months ago.

"Thanks to its high resolution and ability to measure depth, this new camera could make virtual reality more realistic and let you interact with augmented reality information in a more seamless manner," said Edoardo Charbon from the Advanced Quantum Architecture Laboratory (AQUALab) at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.

"For transportation applications, this new camera could help achieve unprecedented levels of autonomy and safety by enabling multiple low-power LiDAR devices to be used on a vehicle, providing fast, high-resolution 3-D view of the surroundings," said first author, Kazuhiro Morimoto from Canon Inc. in Japan. "In a somewhat more distant future, quantum communication, sensing and computing could all benefit from photon-counting cameras with multi-megapixel resolution."

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EPIC meetings switched over to an online format. The first meeting include presentations from IRnova, Lynred, Leonardo, MBDA, FLIR, Lambda-X, ACM Coatings, Emberion, and Asphericon:

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Google explains depth sensing in its Pixel 4 smartphone:

"To deal with textureless regions and cope with low-light conditions, we make use of an “active stereo” setup, which projects an IR pattern into the scene that is detected by stereo IR cameras. This approach makes low-texture regions easier to identify, improving results and reducing the computational requirements of the system.

Stereo sensing systems can be extremely computationally intensive, and it’s critical that a sensor running at 30Hz is low power while remaining high quality. uDepth leverages a number of key insights to accomplish this.

we apply a novel technique for neural depth refinement to support the regular grid pattern illuminator on the Pixel 4. Typical active stereo systems project a pseudo-random grid pattern to help disambiguate matches in the scene, but uDepth is capable of supporting repeating grid patterns as well. Repeating structure in such patterns produces regions that look similar across stereo pairs, which can lead to incorrect matches. We mitigate this issue using a lightweight (75k parameter) convolutional architecture, using IR brightness and neighbor information to adjust incorrect matches — in less than 1.5ms per frame."


In the end, Google gives a couple of examples of depth-enabled photography features:

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Framos publishes an interview with Brian Pruitt, Director of Product & Partner Marketing at Intel responsible for Intel RealSense product line. The L515 is the first camera in the Intel LiDAR camera family launched in Q4 2019:

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Edge AI and Vision Alliance publishes May 2019 tutorial "Eye Tracking for the Future: The Eyes Have It" by Peter Milford, President of Parallel Rules. One of the key takeaways is that eye tracking is not ready for mass market consumer applications:

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2009 presentation "Electron- and Hole- Avalanche HgCdTe Photodiode Arrays for Astronomy" by Donald N. B. Hall from Teledyne and University of Hawaii gives one of the best explanations of nearly noiseless avalanche multiplication in MCT materials:

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2009 presentation "Electron- and Hole- Avalanche HgCdTe Photodiode Arrays for Astronomy" by Donald N. B. Hall from Teledyne and University of Hawaii gives one of the best explanations of nearly noiseless avalanche multiplication in MCT materials:

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2017 Nanophotonics issue feantures an paper "Emerging technologies for high performance infrared detectors" by Chee Leong Tan and Hooman Mohseni from Northwestern University, Evanstone, IL. It quotes an excellent specific detectivity comparison chart of most of the available IR detectors together with D* limits of the ideal photodiode, photoconductor, and bolometer (quoted from Rogalski A. History of infrared detectors. Optoelectron Rev 2012;20:279–308.)

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PrimeNano uses pixels as a demo of capabilities of its analytical instruments:


The company also re-publishes 2015 Chipworks paper on using sMIM technique for doping analysis:

"Scanning microwave impedance microscopy (sMIM) is a new scanning probe microscopy (SPM) technique that replaces traditional scanning capacitance microscopy (SCM). Like SCM, the new sMIM technique reveals information on the implanted dopant structures of a semiconductor device. The sMIM technology provides the traditional dC/dV SCM images, which give insight into the dopant types and the positions of junction, while also providing several other channels of information, including sMIM-C and sMIM-R. The sMIM-C signal is proportional to the permittivity/capacitance variation, which, for semiconducting samples, depends on the carrier concentration, since highly doped materials will give lower capacitance for the tip-sample contact than low doped materials. The sMIM-R channel provides information about the conductivity of the sample."

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BiometricUpdate reports that Shenzhen, China-based startup Intellifusion raises $141M. The security solutions is an area of intensive investment in China. Intellifusion is a 6-year old company and plans an IPO in the near future. The investors are a mix of Chinese and international VCs.

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SK Hynix publishes a video promoting its image sensors:

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EETimes Junko Yoshida publishes a review of Waymo Driver presentation by YooJung Ahn, head of design at Waymo. The new AV platform features 29 cameras and 5 LiDARs:

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ON Semi video talks about its ARX3A0 560x560 pixel sensor consuming 3mW at 1fps:

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SystemPlus publishes a reverse engineering report of the new Goodix optical fingerprint sensor:

"With more than 120 designs in several flagships on the market, Goodix this year offers a new version of the fingerprint sensor. It’s called the ultra-thin in-display optical fingerprint sensor, and it uses a micro lens design instead of optical lenses. The sensor is located on the front of the device, directly under the glass display and the organic light emitting diode (OLED) material.

The sensor is manufactured from a Front-Side Illumination CMOS Image Sensor (FSI-CIS), with an on-chip Near InfraRed (NIR) filter, collimator and Micro Lens Array (MLA). The component also includes features to provide a small gap between the CIS and the OLED material.

Since the last version of the device, Goodix made several changes at the optical level but also at the integrated circuit (IC) level. Indeed, the sensor doesn’t require any additional circuits besides the sensor IC. Power management and signal processing rely on the main board chipset."

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AutoSens launches AutoSensONLINE, a new event promising high-quality technical content in the field of vehicle perception – all delivered online. While the world battles with the challenges of COVID-19, the AutoSens team have been busy forming plans to support their engineering community through these times of travel restrictions and social distancing.

This new digital portal offers technical presentations, market analysis and, most importantly, community interaction. It’s a fresh new virtual event-space offering the opportunity to learn and network from the safety and comfort of a home or office.

The first AutoSensONLINE is running 12-14 May with subsequent editions in June and July 2020. Themes for each series include:

• 12-14 May – The Changing Dynamics of ADAS and Autonomous Vehicle Development
• 11-12 June – Advances in Sensors for ADAS and Autonomous Vehicles
• 14-15 July – Managing Data in ADAS and Autonomous Vehicles

The registration is free. Attendees can register just once to receive free access for all seven days of AutoSensONLINE, and all content will be available online for participants to watch after each event.

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PRNewswire: LiDAR startup Sense Photonics hired Shauna McIntyre as CEO. McIntyre used to led Google's automotive services and Google Maps' automotive programs. Sense Photonics sought a dynamic business leader who could lead the company during an accelerated growth stage.

The company's co-founder Scott Burroughs who served as CEO since the company's inception in 2016, will now assume the roles of president and chief innovation officer.

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Hamamatsu unveils S14810 and S14813 TDI CCDs that use a CMOS readout and ADC for digital output:

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cnTechPost reports that Alibaba DAMO Academy has developed an ISP processor for in-vehicle cameras that improves vision at night, thereby improving the safety of autonomous driving. The ISP is said to use a 3D noise reduction and image enhancement algorithm developed by the Alibaba DAMO Academy.

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EETimes publishes an article "Advancing Autonomous Vehicles Is All in the Eyes" by Mathew Arcoleo, Omnivision's Staff Product Marketing Manager. The company believes that eye and gaze tracking becomes an essential part of modern vehicle's driver monitoring system (DMS):

The first question that needs to be answered in creating an eye-tracking system is, what ASIL rating is needed to meet current and future requirements? For eye tracking, a sensor’s application may include more safety-critical functions in the future, so it’s likely to require a higher ASIL certification. We at Omnivision think ASIL B/C is the ideal rating for DMSes, because these systems are used both for autonomous driving and as a safety feature.

Specifically, the following DMS safety goals must be met:

• The device shall not mirror the whole image or parts of the image in the horizontal or vertical direction.
• The device shall not transfer images with the incorrect size in terms of rows and columns.
• The device shall not send any data that is unprotected by a cyclical redundancy check (CRC) that includes the appropriate hamming distance.

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Sony Japan site publishes an article about its BSI ToF sensor development. Few quotes in Google automatic translation:

"In order to develop a single sensor, more than 100 engineers develop in various areas. Especially in the case of a ToF sensor, the technology area is wider than that of a sensor alone, such as a laser serving as a light source and signal processing for converting information of detected light into distance. If we include the human resources involved, we may be developing with 200 to 300 people.

Currently, we are creating an evaluation board for the ToF sensor and evaluating the total system as a module that includes not only the sensor itself but also a laser and lens.

The development of the ToF sensor was carried out in collaboration with a base in Belgium, but it was a bit of a puzzle at first. Of course, there were language barriers, and there is a culture that values ​​vacation, so even if you are in the middle of development, the person in charge will take a long vacation, so this common sense does not apply to scheduling There were also things. On the other hand, Belgium is surrounded by other countries and is used to working in an environment where various cultures coexist, so many people have a strong curiosity about different cultures. There are also places that understand Japanese thinking and culture."

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Vice.com: Nature publishes a Stanford University paper on camera usage in the toilet "A mountable toilet system for personalized health monitoring via the analysis of excreta" by Seung-min Park, Daeyoun D. Won, Brian J. Lee, Diego Escobedo, Andre Esteva, Amin Aalipour, T. Jessie Ge, Jung Ha Kim, Susie Suh, Elliot H. Choi, Alexander X. Lozano, Chengyang Yao, Sunil Bodapati, Friso B. Achterberg, Jeesu Kim, Hwan Park, Youngjae Choi, Woo Jin Kim, Jung Ho Yu, Alexander M. Bhatt, Jong Kyun Lee, Ryan Spitler, Shan X. Wang & Sanjiv S. Gambhir. Seoul Song Do Hospital, Salesforce Research, Case Western Reserve University, University of Toronto, Leiden University, Pohang University of Science and Technology, and Catholic University of Korea contributed to this work too.

"The ‘smart’ toilet, which is self-contained and operates autonomously by leveraging pressure and motion sensors, analyses the user’s urine using a standard-of-care colorimetric assay that traces red–green–blue values from images of urinalysis strips, calculates the flow rate and volume of urine using computer vision as a uroflowmeter, and classifies stool according to the Bristol stool form scale using deep learning, with performance that is comparable to the performance of trained medical personnel. Each user of the toilet is identified through their fingerprint and the distinctive features of their anoderm, and the data are securely stored and analysed in an encrypted cloud server. The toilet may find uses in the screening, diagnosis and longitudinal monitoring of specific patient populations."

To estimate the speed, size, and other spatial parameters, the prototype system reconstructs a 3D scene image using a stereo pair of GoPro Hero 7 cameras in 1.2MP 240fps high speed mode. Another two cameras are used for color and shape analysis and a person identification.

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Stefan Seltz-Axmacher, CEO and founder of Starsky Robotics, publishes an analysis of the failure of his autonomous tracking company. Forbes reporter Brad Templeton publishes his view on the company demise too. The two articles point to the problems in AI technology for autonomous driving:


"In 2016, we became the first street-legal vehicle to be paid to do real work without a person behind the wheel. In 2018, we became the first street-legal truck to do a fully unmanned run, albeit on a closed road. In 2019, our truck became the first fully-unmanned truck to drive on a live highway. And in 2020, we’re shutting down.

There are too many problems with the AV industry to detail here: the professorial pace at which most teams work, the lack of tangible deployment milestones, the open secret that there isn’t a robotaxi business model, etc. The biggest, however, is that supervised machine learning doesn’t live up to the hype.

Rather than seeing exponential improvements in the quality of AI performance (a la Moore’s Law), we’re instead seeing exponential increases in the cost to improve AI systems — supervised ML seems to follow an S-Curve."


"The S-Curve here is why Comma.ai, with 5–15 engineers, sees performance not wholly different than Tesla’s 100+ person autonomy team. Or why at Starsky we were able to become one of three companies to do on-public road unmanned tests (with only 30 engineers)."

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