Archives for April 2014

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Smithers Apex, the organizers of Image Sensors Conference in London, UK, now offer two more conferences:

Image Sensors Americas, to be held on September 9-11, 2014 at Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco, USA. Confirmed speakers include Masahiko Koyanagi, UX Specialist, Huawei, Japan and Satoshi Miyazaki, Hyper Suprime-Cam Project, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Japan. The program will cover plenoptic cameras, gesture control, medical imaging, automotive and broadcast cameras.

Image Sensors Automotive to be held on June 17-18, 2014 at the Crowne Plaza Brussels - Le Palace, Belgium. Speakers confirmed from: Euro NCAP, BMW, Continental, Ficosa, SmartSurv Vision Systems, Valeo Vision Systems, Texas Instruments, Yogitech, Aptina, OmniVision, Toshiba, Melexis, aSpect Systems, Alain Dunoyer (SBD), DxO Labs.

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PR Newswire: Sony new Alpha 7s full-frame DSLR features a new 12MP sensor capable to shot 4K 30fps video from entire sensor area with no binning or skipping. An official Youtube video talks about the new sensor's improved sensitivity and DR:

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Albert Theuwissen announces the 2nd Imaging Forum, to be held on Dec. 11-12, 2014. The subject of the second forum is "Advanced Digital Image Processing". The audience is strictly limited to 28 people, to stimulate the interaction between the participants and speaker(s). The speaker(s) will be announced in the coming weeks.

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Sony publishes some data showing its semiconductor manufacturing capacity, as of Feb. 6, 2014. A part that relates to image sensors production:

Production Capacity (per month):

• CMOS Image Sensor - 60M units
• CCDs - 12M units

Image sensor fabs:

• Japan:
  Sony Semiconductor Corporation Nagasaki TEC (CMOS Image Sensor)
  Kagoshima TEC (CCD Image Sensor)
  Kumamoto TEC (CCD&CMOS Image Sensor)
• Overseas:
  Sony Device Technology (Thailand) Co., Ltd. (CCD&CMOS Image Sensor assembly)

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Sharp publishes a catalog with its CCD and CMOS sensors and camera modules roadmap. The high resolution part of it is shown below:


Looks like 1-inch optical format becoming popular (Sony, Aptina, and now Sharp):

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Gigaom reports that the recent Google's $3.2B acquisition, Nest, halts the sales of its Protect smart smoke alarm due to a flaw in its gesture-based user interface. Users were supposed to be able to pause the alarm by waving at it. However the alarm could be unintentionally turned off also by some other types of movement, so that if there is a fire and the alarm is going off, a nearby movement could falsely pause it. Nest's Youtube video shows how the gesture control was supposed to work in a correct way:

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Invisage files SEC form for round D investment on March 25. The company intends to raise $30M in this round, of which it has raised $17,832,709 so far.

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Chipworks publishes more details about Galaxy S5 primary camera.The 16 MP ISOCELL image sensor with 1.12 µm pixel has phase-detection pixel pairs distributed across nearly the entire active pixel array. This marks the smallest phase detection pixel generation Chipworks has seen and only the second time they have seen on a BSI sensor (Toshiba was first @ 1.4 µm). Chipworks says: "The presence of phase detection pixels also implies the use of a back aperture grid (with the phase detection pixels being half-masked). The use of an aperture grid would also be a first for Samsung (based on our analysis)."

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Business Wire: ON Semiconductor has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Truesense Imaging, a former Kodak image sensor business. The acquisition of Truesense Imaging complements ON Semiconductor’s image-sensor business by expanding its technology portfolio and adding more than 200 new customers. Under the terms of the agreement, ON Semiconductor will pay approximately $92M in cash to acquire Truesense Imaging.

"The pending acquisition of Truesense Imaging is a step towards our stated strategic goal of expanding our presence in select segments of the industrial end-market," said Keith Jackson, president and CEO of ON Semiconductor. "With the acquisition of Truesense, we will augment our abilities to deliver a broad range of high-performance image sensors to the industrial end-market and at the same time significantly expand our customer footprint. I am excited about the growth opportunities the combination of the two companies presents in the high-performance imaging market."

"ON Semiconductor is an ideal strategic fit for Truesense as we share a common vision for expanding the capabilities of high-performance sensors used in the world’s most demanding imaging applications," said Chris McNiffe, CEO of Truesense Imaging. "This combination enables us to leverage our technology base and four decades of imaging expertise with ON Semiconductor’s R&D, manufacturing and global logistics infrastructure. We are very excited to join the ON Semiconductor organization and to enable new growth opportunities for both our customers and our employees."

Based on unaudited results, Truesense Imaging’s revenue for 2013 was approximately $79M with gross and operating margins of approximately 44% and 23%, respectively. Truesense Imaging will be incorporated in ON Semiconductor’s Application Products Group (APG) business group. The transaction has been approved by ON Semiconductor’s and Truesense Imaging’s boards of directors and is anticipated to close before the end of Q22014, subject to required regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

Market Wired publishes a PR of Platinum Equity, the current owner of Truesense: "This is a textbook example of the value Platinum Equity's approach can provide many different stakeholders throughout the lifecycle of an investment," said Platinum Equity's Jason Leach, who led the initial acquisition. "First we provided a divestiture solution to a seller in need as Kodak confronted a difficult period of restructuring. We then executed a complex carve out with minimal disruption and established the business as an independent company that has thrived under our stewardship, to the benefit of Truesense customers, suppliers and employees. We have now found a new home for Truesense that we believe is a perfect fit."

Thanks to MD for the info!

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Business Wire: Aptina re-targets the previously announced 1-inch 4K AR1011HS sensor to security and surveillance markets. The AR1011HS is a 10.8MP image sensor based on a large 3.4µm DR-Pix pixel (84dB DR according to web site, 66dB according to flyer). At full-resolution, the AR1011HS offers 60fps video, nearly double that of competitive sensors, while jumping to 120 fps for 1080p HD mode. For cameras with a smaller optical format, Aptina introduces another previously announced sensor, the 1/2-inch 18MP AR1820HS, too capable of 4K video. The AR1820HS offers a summing mode that jumps the SNR by 6dB in 1080p videos while lowering the overall operating power.

"Arecont Vision is pleased to be the first to demonstrate the Aptina AR1011HS 4K image sensor in an ultra-high definition (UHD) IP security camera," said Raul Calderon, SVP at Arecont Vision. "Our newest 4K camera utilizing the Aptina AR1011HS is a high-performance addition to our portfolio of megapixel imaging technology that will help us continue to lead the market in professional security applications and products."

"Aptina will continue to innovate imaging solutions for surveillance customers," said Sandor Barna, CTO at Aptina. "Delivering full resolution and 4K video in a variety of optical formats allows surveillance developers to increase the image quality, improve the overall reliability and lower the total cost of ownership of their security solutions."

Aptina AR1011HS 1-inch, 10.8MP sensor.

AR1011HS Block Diagram

1/2-inch AR1820 video modes

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Design & Reuse: Pyxalis announces that it has been using Cortus APS cores in multiple image sensor designs. The processors offer the possibility to integrate more application-specific image processing functions such as auto-white balance, auto-exposure control, etc.

"By using Cortus processor cores we have been able to offer our customers very flexible sensor operation enabling a lot of different modes depending on the applications", says Philippe Rommeveaux, CEO of Pyxalis. He adds, "Cortus processor cores, with their small silicon footprint, complement our Pyxalis IP allowing us to efficiently deliver designs for different market segments".

"We are honoured to be chosen by Pyxalis for their high performance image sensors", says Michael Chapman, CEO and President of Cortus, "Their approach of adding intelligence close to the sensor is an emerging trend in the industry. Using a processor core not only offers programmability to end users, but helps the Pyxalis design team efficiency by making derivative designs easier to implement".

To date over 500 million devices have been manufactured containing Cortus processor cores.

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PR Newswire: OmniVision launches two new CameraChip sensors for high-end security and surveillance applications. The OV5658 and OV10823 offer improved light sensitivity, HDR and wide FOV.

"Driven by a transition in mid-range security and surveillance cameras to HD resolutions, high-end systems are quickly adopting even higher-resolution image sensors that can support features such as facial recognition and biometrics, on top of excellent scene reproduction," said Raymond Wu, president at OmniVision. "With this in mind, we're bringing to market two highly competitive imaging solutions, designed to deliver extremely clear high-resolution video with wide FOV. The combination of these benefits ensures detailed scene reproduction and improved video analytics processing for automated security systems."

The 1/3.2-inch 5MP OV5658 features 1.75um OmniBSI+ pixel and is capable of full-resolution 5MP video at 30fps or 1080p or 720p HD video at 60fps, or at 30fps with extra pixels for EIS. The 1/2.6-inch OV10823 uses 1.4um OmniBSI-2 pixel and is able to capture full-resolution 10.5MP video at 30fpa and ultra-high-resolution 4K2K video at 30fps. With a form factor of 7.63 x 5.98 mm in chip scale packaging (CSP), the OV10823 is said to be the security industry's smallest image sensor capable of recording 4K2K video.

The OV5658 is available in volume production. The OV10823 is currently sampling, with volume production expected to begin in the second quarter of 2014.

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A "Special Section on Advanced Image Sensor Technology" is now published in ITE Transactions on Media Technology and Applications (MTA) Vol. 2(2014) No. 2. Professors Shoji Kawahito and Jun Ohta served as an Editor-in-Chief and a Secretary of the special section, respectively. The 200-page MTA publication, full of interesting image sensor papers, is open access, and everyone can read it free of charge.

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OmniVision launches the OV6211, said to be the world's smallest global shutter sensor for applications such as notebooks, tablets, mobile phones, wearable electronics, gaming devices and security systems. The OV6211 can be used for gesture recognition, eye tracking, depth and motion detection, as well as biometrics. The OV6211 captures 400 x 400 (square) resolution video at 120 fps consuming 85mW power.

The OV6211 features a 3um OmniPixel3-GS global shutter pixel. The sensor features two low-power modes: light sensing mode and ultra-low power mode. In light sensing mode, the OV6211 wakes up from "sleep mode" only when a change in light has been detected. In ultra-low power mode, the sensor reduces resolution and frame rates to conserve additional power. These two features allow the sensor to be used in "always on" mode while consuming very little power.

The 1/10.5-inch OV6211 fits into an ultra-compact 3.2 x 3.2 mm chip-scale package (CSP3). The sensor is currently in volume production.

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PR Newswire: Plastic Logic and ISORG were jointly awarded the IDTechEx Product development award at the Printed Electronics Show in Berlin. This award was for their jointly developed flexible image sensor which also won the Flexi Award at Flextech, Phoenix, USA in February. The flexible sensor demonstration, which is only a fraction of a millimeter thick (~150 microns) and weighs only 2.7 grams, gave a glimpse of the huge range of possible applications for the large area sensor technology. The overall market for printed and flexible sensors is forecast to be worth over $7Bn by 2020 (IDTechEx 2014).

The range of possible new applications of the flexible sensor includes smart packaging and sensors for medical equipment and biomedical diagnostics, security and mobile commerce (user identification by fingerprint scanning), environmental and other industrial uses, and gesture recognition for laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

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The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a final rule requiring rear view cameras in all new vehicles. The rule requires all vehicles under 10,000 pounds, including buses and trucks, manufactured on or after May 1, 2018, to come equipped with rear visibility technology that expands the field of view to enable the driver of a motor vehicle to detect areas behind the vehicle to reduce death and injury resulting from backover incidents. The field of view must include a 10-foot by 20-foot zone directly behind the vehicle. The system must also meet other requirements including image size, linger time, response time, durability, and deactivation.

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Gizmodo publishes an interview with Symon Whitehorn, HTC's Director of Camera Development and the father of the Duo Camera (used to work for Kodak). Few interesting bits:

"...the basis of it is sort of old technology. You take a stereoscopic view of the world, much like your brain does—you see the world in 3D and you assign range and speed values to things based on your experience—and that's essentially what this is doing."

"There are a few early benefits we already have from this, which is the shallow depth-of-field "bokeh" kind of effect we can create that's typical of expensive glass. But there is going to be many more applications for it. We've just scratched the surface, and we're not really there yet in terms of the pure accuracy of the speed measurements, but the more we develop this platform, there's going to be some pretty intriguing data we're going to be able to extract."

The Ultrapixel "image sensor is based on last year's design, it's totally new (and comes from a new supplier). The revamped sensor should give daylight photos much better saturation and color accuracy."

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Business Wire: TowerJazz announces the successful completion and kick-off of the JV with Panasonic. Within the scope of the JV, Panasonic transferred its semiconductor manufacturing process and capacity tools of 8 inch and 12 inch wafers at its Hokuriku factories (Uozu, Tonami and Arai) to the JV, committing to acquire its products from the JV for a long-term period of at least five years of volume production. TowerJazz is holding 51% of the shares of the JV, and its revenues are increased by approximately $400 million per annum. Panasonic Corporation will be a 49% shareholder of the JV.

TowerJazz will offer to its customers a capacity of a 300mm fab including 65nm CMOS image sensor process with low dark current and high QE, and added available capacity of approximately 800,000 wafers per year (8 inch equivalent) in three manufacturing facilities in Japan. The JV will continue the production of Panasonic's semiconductor processes as Panasonic's subcontractor as well as seek to expand operations by leveraging TowerJazz's customers and businesses to capture out-of-group sales.

In addition, TowerJazz intends to cease the operations of its Nishiwaki (Japan) facility in the course of restructure and rationalization of its Japan manufacturing and business plans. Nishiwaki fab used to manufacture CMOS sensors for Aptina. TowerJazz has acquired it from Micron in 2011.

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2014 VLSI Symposia programs have been published with a major image sensor news - Sony is to present its curved image sensor at the Technology Symposium.

2.1 A Novel Curved CMOS Image Sensor Integrated with Imaging System
K. Itonaga, T. Arimura*, K. Matsumoto*, K. Goro**, K. Terahata*, S. Makimoto**, M. Baba*, T. Kai*, S. Bori*, K. Kasahara*, M. Nagano**, M. Kimura**, Y. Kinoshita**, E. Kishida**, T. Baba, S. Baba, Y. Nomura, N. Tanabe, N. Kimizuka and Y. Matoba, Sony R&D Platform, *Sony Semiconductor Oita, **Sony Semiconductor Kumamoto

We realized an ultimately advanced imaging system that comprises a curved, back-illuminated CMOS image sensor (BIS) and integrated lens which doubles the sensitivity at the edge of the image circle and increases the sensitivity at the center of the image circle by a factor of 1.4 with one-fifth lower dark current than that of a planar BIS. Because the lens field curvature aberration was overcome in principle by the curved sensor itself, the curved BIS enables higher system sensitivity through design of a brighter lens with a smaller F number than is possible with a planar BIS. At the same time, we controlled the tensile stress of the BIS chip to produce a curved shape that widens the energy band-gap to obtain a lower dark current. The curved CIS can be applied to an ultimately advanced imaging system that is validated by the evolution of the animal eye in Nature.

Earlier, Sony has applied for a curved sensor patent which might become a base for the new product. Other big news is TSMC presenting its stacked sensor:

21.3 Advanced 1.1um Pixel CMOS Image Sensor with 3D Stacked Architecture
J.C. Liu, D.N. Yaung, J.J. Sze, C.C. Wang, G. Hung, C.J. Wang, T.H. Hsu, R.J. Lin, T.J. Wang, W.D. Wang, H.Y. Cheng, J.S. Lin, C.C. Chuang, S.Y. Chen, C.S. Tsai, Y.L. Tu, S. Takahashi, Y.P. Chao, F.J. shiu and S.G. Wuu, TSMC

This paper demonstrates an advanced 1.1um pixel backside illuminated CMOS image sensor with a 3D stacked architecture. The carrier wafer in conventional BSI is replaced by ASIC wafer, which contains a part of periphery circuit and is connected to the sensor wafer through bonding technology. With proper layout design and process improvement, the impact of 3D connection (Through Via, TV) on the sensor performance can be significantly minimized. In addition, for the first time, the degradation of stacked pixel performance during the folded circuit operation under sensor array is found and improved. The final stacked sensor exhibits the comparable pixel performances to conventional BSI. Furthermore, stacked architecture provides the opportunity to enhance sensor performance by the separate process tuning for sensor wafers (without any effect on ASIC wafers), leading to a further improvement of dark performance.

The Circuit Symposium has an image sensor session with 5 presentations:

17.1 A Millimeter-Scale Wireless Imaging System with Continuous Motion Detection and Energy Harvesting
G. Kim, Y. Lee, Z. Foo, P. Pannuto, Y.-S. Kuo, B. Kempke, M. Ghaed, S. Bang, I. Lee, Y. Kim, S. Jeong, P. Dutta, D. Sylvester and D. Blaauw, University of Michigan

We present a 2×4×4mm^3 imaging system complete with optics, wireless communication, battery, power management, solar harvesting, processor and memory. The system features a 160×160 resolution CMOS image sensor with 304nW continuous in-pixel motion detection mode. System components are fabricated in five different IC layers and die-stacked for minimal form factor. Photovoltaic (PV) cells face the opposite direction of the imager for optimal illumination and generate 456nW at 10klux to enable energy autonomous system operation.

17.2 A 65-nm 0.5-V 17-pJ/frame.pixel DPS CMOS Image Sensor for Ultra-Low-Power SoCs achieving 40-dB Dynamic Range
D. Bol, G. de Streel, F. Botman, A.K. Lusala and N. Couniot, Université catholique de Louvain

We propose a CMOS image sensor operating at ultra-low voltage (ULV) in a 65-nm low-power (LP) CMOS logic process for ultra-low-power SoC integration. Energy of 17-pJ/frame.pixel and 4×4-μm pixel size with 57-% fill factor are achieved at 0.5 V with digital pixel sensor (DPS) and time-based readout while reaching 40-dB dynamic range (DR) despite high leakage currents and Vt variability, thanks to delta-reset sampling (DRS) as well as gating and adaptive body biasing (ABB) of the 2-transistor (2-T) in-pixel comparator.

17.3 An On-chip 72×60 Angle-Sensitive Single Photon Image Sensor Array for Time-resolved 3-D Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging
C. Lee, B. Johnson and A. Molnar, Cornelll University

We present a 72×60, angle-sensitive single photon avalanche diode (A-SPAD) array, able to perform lens-less 3-D fluorescent lifetime imaging. The pixels use integrated diffraction gratings to extract incident angle, enabling 3-D localization and SPADs to resolve timing information, rejecting high-powered UV stimulus and mapping the lifetimes of different fluorescent sources. The chip
integrates pixel-level counters, and shared timing circuitry, and is implemented in unmodified 180nm CMOS.

17.4 320x240 Oversampled Digital Single Photon Counting Image Sensor
N.A.W. Dutton, L. Parmesan, A.J. Holmes*, L.A. Grant* and R.K. Henderson**, University of Edinburgh / STMicroelectronics Imaging Division, *STMicroelectronics Imaging Division, **University of Edinburgh

A 320x240 single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) based single photon counting image sensor is implemented in 0.13μm imaging CMOS with state of the art 8μm pixel pitch at 26.8% fill factor. The imager is demonstrated operating as a global shutter (GS) oversampled binary image sensor reading out at 5.14kFPS. Frames are accumulated in real time on FPGA to construct a 256 photon/8bit output image at 20FPS.

17.5 A 3.7M-pixel 1300-fps CMOS Image Sensor with 5.0G-Pixel/s High-Speed Readout Circuit
S. Okura, O. Nishikido, Y. Sadanaga, Y. Kosaka, N. Araki, K. Ueda, M. Tachibana and F. Morishita, Renesas Electronics Corporation

A 5.0G-pixel/s readout circuit for 15.3mm×8.6mm optical size, 3.7M-pixel, 1300 fps, and digital output image sensor is presented. To achieve 5.0G-pixel/s readout rate, the high speed column readout circuit is introduced. The novel pixel readout, A/D conversion, and digital data transfer schemes are introduced to realize the readout rate and to reduce the interference noise. The 1 horizontal (1H) readout time is realized to be 1.0us.

Thanks to ND for the news!

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Chipworks publishes a cross-section of Samsung ISOCELL pixel taken from an 8MP sensor. The photograph clearly shows a front-side deep trench isolation (F-DTI) and vertical transfer gates (VTG):


Thanks to RF for the link!

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