Archives for December 2013

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Image Sensors 2014 to be held on March 18-20, 2014 in London, UK has published a final program:

The Future of CMOS Imaging
Howard Rhodes, CTO, Omnivision

The Megapixel Story - a decade to 2014 and beyond
Juha Alakarhu, Head of Imaging Technology at Nokia, Finland

Post-capture image manipulation and colour management
Sylvain Paris, Researcher - Advanced Technology Labs, Adobe, US

Extremely low crosstalk and high SNR technology in small size pixel CMOS image sensor
JunChak Ahn, Principal Engineer, Samsung, Korea

Evolution of 3D integration for CMOS image sensors
Lindsay Grant, Imaging Division Process Manager, ST Microelectronics, UK

What can the foundry contribute to advanced image sensor design and manufacture?
Guenther Ernst, CEO, L-Foundry Germany

What do consumers really want from gesture control, and what are the technology routes to getting there?
Jochen Penne, Director BU Consumer & New Technologies, PMD Technologies, Germany

Evaluating the feasibility of gesture control technologies and integration into consumer applications
Ravi Ayyagari, General Manager (Imaging), Texas Instruments, India

2D solutions for gesture recognition
Speaker TBC

Evaluation of different global shutter image sensor technologies
Dr Manuel Innocent, Design Engineer, ON Semiconductor, Belgium

Developments in voltage domain global shutter technologies and wider trends
Guy Meynants, CTO, CMOSIS, Belgium

Innovation in charge domain global shutter technologies
Shoji Kawahito, Professor, Brookman Technology / Shizuoka University, Japan

Overview of imaging in automotive - history and current state of play
Patrick Denny, Senior Research Engineer, Valeo Systems, Ireland

OEM perspective #1 - drivers for adoption of imaging systems in mainstream automotive applications
Martin Edney, Lead System Engineer, Jaguar Land Rover, UK

Tier 1 perspective - supply chain challenges, balancing end user needs with technology capabilities
Hamma Tadjine, Technical Consultant, VW / Senior Project Manager, IAV, Germany

Sensor producer perspective - specific developments requirements for automotive, challenges
Speaker TBC

OEM perspective #2 - future requirements and trends for automotive imaging
Speaker TBC

The future of high-speed imaging - technology, applications and challenges
Takeharu Etoh, Ritsumeikan University, Japan

Progress with artificial retina technology and applications
Professor Jun Ohta, Professor at Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan

Latest developments for plastic electronics in image sensor applications
Laurent Jamet, Co-Founder, Business Development, ISORG, France

Backside illuminated imagers, embedded CCD in CMOS based imagers and hyperspectral imagers
Piet De Moor, Program Manager for Optical Sensors, IMEC, Belgium

Future requirements in broadcast imaging
Richard Salmon, Lead Research Engineer, BBC Research & Development, UK

More pixels or more than pixels? The future of semiconductor photosensing
Peter Seitz, Managing Director, Hamamatsu Photonics Innovation Center Europe, Switzerland

There are also two workshops on the first day:

A Million Images per Second and Beyond
Renato Turchetta, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
plus guest speakers.

What on earth shall I do with all these pixels?
Albert Theuwissen, Harvest Imaging

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Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Business Wire: TA Associates, a global growth private equity firm, has agreed to acquire CMOSIS. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. CMOSIS employs over 60 people and is based in Antwerp, Belgium.

With financial backing and support from Capital-E Arkiv, CMOSIS was founded in November 2007. CMOSIS broadened its capital base and raised further growth capital in 2009 from ING Corporate Investments (Belgium); ING Activator Fund, the Arkimedes Investment Fund of ING Belgium investing in promising Flemish SMEs; and Participatiemaatschapij Vlaanderen (PMV).

Luc De Mey, Chairman and CEO of CMOSIS, commented: "This transaction will allow CMOSIS to continue growing as an independent company with the support of TA Associates, a strong financial partner that has an impressive track record in building technology companies and is committed to supporting our future growth. I would like to take the opportunity to thank Capital-E, ING and PMV for their strong support in growing CMOSIS."

J. Morgan Seigler, a Principal at TA Associates (UK), LLP who will join the company’s Board of Directors, commented: "The CMOSIS management team has demonstrated expertise in building image sensor businesses. We are excited to partner with such experienced and successful entrepreneurs. CMOSIS is profitable, with a highly reputable brand, attractive client base, and impressive and accelerating growth."

Ajit Nedungadi, a Managing Director at TA Associates (UK), LLP who will also join the company’s Board of Directors, commented: "CCD has traditionally been the dominant technology in the high-end image sensor market that CMOSIS serves. The migration to CMOS is being driven by a lower cost of manufacturing, lower power requirements, higher speeds and improved sensor resolution. This accelerating market shift should continue to prove favorable for CMOSIS."

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Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Seeking Alpha, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal quote Nikkei report that Sony is in talks to buy Renesas' Tsuruoka plant in Yamagata Prefecture and re-target it for CMOS sensor production. "The two sides are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding as early as the beginning of next week." The expected price of the fab is 10 billion yen ($96M).

The article says that Sony controls 30% of the image sensor market. Sony has said it gets 77% of its semiconductor sales from image sensors.

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Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

PR Newswire: Omnivision's revenues for the quarter were $397.2M, as compared to $373.7M in the previous quarter, and $390.1M a year ago. GAAP net income in the second quarter of fiscal 2014 was $26.3M, as compared to net income of $23.1M in the previous quarter, and $10.3M a year ago. GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 18.8%, as compared to 17.4% for the previous quarter and 16.6% a year ago. The increase in gross margin reflects production cost improvements in some of the high-volume devices, coupled by a decrease in allowance for excess and obsolete inventories and an increase in revenues recorded on the sale of previously written-down inventory. The Company ended the period with cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments totaling $265.6M, an increase of $25.1M from the previous quarter.

"In the second quarter of fiscal 2014, OmniVision grew revenues in the midst of a slowing smartphone market and intensifying competition," said Shaw Hong, CEO of OmniVision. Based on current trends, the Company expects revenues for the next quarter will be in the range of $310M to $340M, below analyst's average expectation of $399.9M (Reuters).

Seeking Alpha publishes Omnivision's earnings call transcript.

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Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Azosensors: The newly appointed ULIS CTO, Chris Tisse gives an interview to Azosensors talking about a new generation of low-cost and low-power thermal sensors and their possible applications.

Q: "What will be the key customer demands for the infrared imaging market over the next five years?"

A: "I believe that the main challenge for uncooled IR detectors will be to meet the SWaP-C (Size, Weight and Power - Cost) requirements for embedded applications. Another key customer demand will be the gradually increasing pixel count (i.e., the amount of pixels in the image)."

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Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Sony announces 2.35MP, 5.86um Global Shutter pixel sensors for industrial applications, IMX174LLJ (B&W) and IMX174LQJ (color). The new 1/1.2-inch sensors feature a speed of 164.5fps (10b resolution) or 128.2fps (12b resolution) and a ROI mode to set at a maximum of 16 areas inside the effective pixels and output cropped partial pictures:


The sensors support HDR mode by combining two different exposed frames internally and outputting just one HDR frame. Sony publishes a Youtube video showing its newly developed global shutter pixels in action:

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Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Korea IT News reports that Samsung Electronics develops a camera module with 20MP resolution, planned to reach the market in 2H 2014. It's not clear who is the sensor supplier for this camera module. So far Samsung LSI is reported to productize 13MP and 16MP sensors.

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