Archives for March 2018

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BusinessWire: ON Semiconductor introduces a 43MP CCD in 35 mm optical format, said to be the highest CCD resolution in full-frame format. The KAI-43140 is aimed to applications such as end of line inspection of HD and UHD flat panel displays and aerial photography.

The KAI-43140 utilizes a new 4.5 µm Interline Transfer CCD (ITCCD) pixel that increases resolution by 50% compared to the prior 5.5 µm design while preserving critical imaging performance. Featuring a true electric “global” shutter, the device supports full resolution frame rates up to 4 fps through the use of flexible 1, 2, or 4 output readout architecture. The KAI-43140 shares the same package and pin definitions as the popular 29 MP KAI-29050 and KAI-29052 image sensors, allowing it to be incorporated into existing camera designs with only minor electrical changes.

“Many industrial imaging applications demand the image uniformity currently only available from CCD technology, while needing the resolution increases that require continued pixel development,” said Herb Erhardt, VP and GM, Industrial Solutions Division, Image Sensor Group at ON Semiconductor. “With the KAI-43140, camera manufacturers and end customers can continue to push the boundaries of high resolution image capture without sacrificing the image quality their applications require.”

Engineering grade versions of the KAI-43140 are now available, with production versions planned for early 3Q18.

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Pixart keeps diversifying its image sensor portfolio with some degree of success:

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SeekingAlpha publishes Himax Q4 2017 earnings call transcript. Few quotes on 3D and CMOS sensor business:

"At present, our total market is primarily the Android based smartphone. SLiM, our total – our structure light-based 3D sensing total solutions which we announced jointly with Qualcomm last August, brings together Qualcomm’s industry leading 3D algorithm with Himax’s cutting-edge design and manufacturing capabilities in optics and NIR sensors as well as our unique know-how in 3D sensing system integration.

The majority of the key technologies inside the SLiM total solution is developed and supplied by Himax ourselves. These critical technologies include, on the projector end, DOE and collimator utilizing our world leading WLO technology, a tailor-made laser driver IC, and high precision active alignment for the projector assembly; and on the receiver end, a high efficiency near-infrared CMOS image sensor. Last but not least, Himax also developed an ASIC by incorporating Qualcomm’s algorithm for 3D depth map generation. The fact that all of these critical components are developed in-house puts us in a unique leading position. It represents a very high barrier of entry for any potential competition and a much higher ASP and profit margin for us.

The Qualcomm/Himax solution is by far the highest quality 3D sensing total solution available for the Android market right now. It has the industry’s best performance in all of the dimension, 3D depth accuracy, indoor/outdoor sensitivity and power consumption. It passes the toughest eye safety standards with a proprietary glass broken detection mechanism to safeguard the user from any potential harm. Furthermore, we have the only solution to offer face recognition for secure online payment, a must-have feature for high end smartphones of the future. We are working with multiple tier-1 smartphone makers, aiming to launch 3D sensing on their premium smartphones starting the first half of 2018.

Our SLiM solution will be ready for mass production and shipment by the end of the first quarter, 2018 with an initial capacity of 2 million units per month, following some waiting period. The initial capacity is part of our Phase I expansion of $80 million. We have already achieved pretty satisfactory production yields in our internal pilot production. Given that SLiM is a highly integrated solution with ASPs much higher than those of individual components, by the time we started making shipment, it will be a major growth contributor to our top and bottom lines.

In an attempt to accelerate the adoption of 3D sensing for Android phones, in addition to SLiM, we’re also working on stereoscopic type 3D sensing as a lower costs alternative. Unlike SLiM which utilizes structure light to generate 3D, stereoscopic type uses two cameras to replicate 3D vision in nature, augmented by coded light for image depth enhancement. Both types of solutions offered by Himax operate on active NIR light source with high sensitivity NIR sensors, thus working very well even under extreme brightness or total darkness.

For 3D sensing purposes, structure light approach offers better depth precision than stereoscopic type but the cost is also higher. By introducing stereoscopic 3D sensing, we aim to bring down the cost of 3D sensing so that it can be afforded by mass market smartphone models. We are pleased to report that development of stereoscopic 3D sensing total solution for face recognition and 3D features has been under way. We are aiming to be mass production and shipment ready by Q4 of this year. Similar to our experience in SLiM, we are working with some of the most prominent ecosystem partners in developing our stereoscopic 3D total solution.

We are very update progress in due course or low costs compared to structure light their stereoscopic 3D was still represent a much higher ASP and better gross margin potential for us. Last but not least and this year CES many of our customers and partners demonstrated 3D sensing applications in IoT or promoted AR/VR and robotic related products with Himax SLiM inside and received very positive feedback. As I mentioned before, 3D sensing can have a broad range of applications that go beyond smartphone. We are very excited about the growth prospects it represents and believes 3D sensing will be our biggest long-term growth engine."

A slide from the company presentation:

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Autosens publishes a presentation "LIDAR systems for automotive: Benefits and the challenges for OEMs" by Jaguar Landrover's Andy Lewin:

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MDPI Special Issue on the 2017 International Image Sensor Workshop publishes Delft University paper "Temporal Noise Analysis of Charge-Domain Sampling Readout Circuits for CMOS Image Sensors" by Xiaoliang Ge and Albert J. P. Theuwissen.

"In order to address the trade-off between the low input-referred noise and high dynamic range, a Gm-cell-based pixel together with a charge-domain correlated-double sampling (CDS) technique has been proposed to provide a way to efficiently embed a tunable conversion gain along the read-out path. Such readout topology, however, operates in a non-stationery large-signal behavior, and the statistical properties of its temporal noise are a function of time. Conventional noise analysis methods for CMOS image sensors are based on steady-state signal models, and therefore cannot be readily applied for Gm-cell-based pixels. In this paper, we develop analysis models for both thermal noise and flicker noise in Gm-cell-based pixels by employing the time-domain linear analysis approach and the non-stationary noise analysis theory, which help to quantitatively evaluate the temporal noise characteristic of Gm-cell-based pixels. Both models were numerically computed in MATLAB using design parameters of a prototype chip, and compared with both simulation and experimental results. The good agreement between the theoretical and measurement results verifies the effectiveness of the proposed noise analysis models."

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Espros February newsletter (not on the web site yet) explains the company plans to expand its BSI production line:

"One of the most important factors is time to market. The semiconductor industry is in a very difficult position in this respect because the supply chain and thus the lead time is quite long.

Typically, more than 20 weeks from the start of wafer processing to final chips is not abnormal. Thus, if a shortage in the supply chain occurs, e.g. due to increasing demand, allocation for 30-50 weeks is not really special. In the case of our products where we do rather complex backside processing, we had to add another 11 weeks to the supply lead time one year ago. This situation was not satisfying at all and we decided to invest heavily into additional in-house capabilities.

The result is now that we can do the backside and the back-end processing of the wafers within days, if needed. We showed this performance in a recent project where lead time from wafer production start until the chips were in the lab was only nine weeks. Not just wafer processing and backside processing, but also assembly including AR coating and band-pass filter bonding."

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IC Insights publishes a report on worlds fab closures. It turns out that CIS market expansion has saved two 300mm fabs from closure:

"Renesas sold its 300mm logic fab to Sony in 2014. Sony repurposed that fab to make image sensors. In 2017, Samsung closed its 300mm Line 11 memory fab in Yongin, South Korea, also repurposing it to manufacture image sensors."

According to other sources, the re-purporsed Samsung fab is located in Hwaseong in Gyeonggi Province and should start CIS manufacturing in 1H 2018.

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AutoSens publishes CSEM Christophe Pache presentation on flash LiDARs with a Q&A session starting at 20:20 time:

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BusinessWire: Renesas announced the R-Car V3H SoC for computer vision and AI processing at industry-leading low power levels, targeting automotive front cameras for use in mass-produced Level 3 (conditional automation) and Level 4 (high automation) autonomous vehicles. The new SoC is optimized for use in stereo front cameras and achieves five times the computer vision performance of its predecessor, the R-Car V3M SoC.

The R-Car V3H algorithms include Dense Optical Flow, Dense Stereo Disparity, and Object Classification. The integrated IP for CNN accelerates deep learning at industry-leading low power levels of only 0.3 watts, achieving more than two times of the deep neural network performance of the R-Car V3M.

Samples of the R-Car V3H SoC will be available from Q4. Mass production is scheduled to begin in Q3, 2019.

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BusinessWire: Teledyne DALSA is expanding its manufacturing capacity given increased demand for the company’s CMOS-based digital X-ray detectors. Teledyne DALSA is a leader in the design and assembly of specialized CMOS X-ray detectors which offer superior lag-free, real-time imaging at both higher resolution and reduced X-ray dose levels.

Teledyne detectors feature proprietary active pixel architecture which offers higher image quality, QE and SNR compared with image intensified charge coupled devices (IICCDs), amorphous silicon (a-Si) or amorphous selenium (a-Se) detectors and even other CMOS-based competitive products.

In order to service its global customer base, Teledyne currently operates X-ray detector manufacturing and assembly locations in the Netherlands, Canada and the US.

“The expansion of the cleanroom facilities in the Netherlands will help us satisfy greater anticipated demand from dental and medical imaging OEMs,” said Robert Mehrabian, Chairman, President and CEO of Teledyne. “In fact, we currently expect that demand for our detectors will more than double by 2020 compared with 2017.”

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South China Morning Post publishes an article about Pixelplus launching "moving image HDR sensors" for the automotive applications.

“HDR technology was developed several years ago on the image signal processing (ISP) level, but the issue with digital artefact persisted. Our solution is an image sensor technology that eliminates artefact because functionality is built inside the image sensor itself,” says SK Lee, president and CEO of Pixelplus. “Our plan is to be among the global top five image sensor providers, especially for the automotive industry based on new camera platforms.”

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PRWeb: LensVector seems to shift its liquid crystal lens efforts away from imaging to light fixtures, possibly a result of appointing a new CEO:

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