Archives for May 2018

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VLSI Symposium 2018 publishes a preview of Shizuoka University, Brookman, and Chiba University paper "A Two-Tap NIR Lock-In Pixel CMOS Image Sensor with Background Light Cancelling Capability for Non-Contact Heart Rate Detection."

"Sensor technologies, whether for the Internet of Things, industrial electronics, or biomedical applications, have been and continue to be an important part of the VLSI Symposia. This year, both Technology and Circuits papers fall into this category. First, C. Cao from Shizuoka University will present a CMOS image sensor using two-tap near infrared lock-in pixels for non-contact heart rate detection. The two-tap pixels are used to cancel background light, achieving >98% detection precision even in the presence of sinusoidal varying bright ambient light, comparable to the latest visible-band-based ISP-assisted method. Fabricated in a 0.11um CIS technology, the achieved maximum modulation ratio is 90%, as well as a low random noise of 1.1e-rms."

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3DInCities publishes an interview with Boyd Fowler, Omnivision CTO. Omnivision Nyxel NIR enhancing sensor has been a winner of 3D InCites Award in the Device of the Year category. Few quotes from the interview:

"...drivers of digital imaging technology have converged to two distinct paths: digital photography and machine-vision applications. The former has been the main driver for some time. The latter is a relatively new and growing market space.

Ten years down the road, everything you own could have a camera in it...

High reliability is mission critical for the automotive and medical markets, but the industry doesn’t always see it that way. We consider our automotive and medical image sensors almost as a separate business from our consumer segments to ensure their reliability.

...cost reduction has been another hurdle to overcome. “20 years ago, CMOS image sensors were boutique technologies and very expensive,” said Fowler. “While performance is increasing, the expectation is that the price will drop. Perpetuating that is an ongoing challenge.”

...today, the packaging used to meet reliability requirements ends up being larger and bulkier than other camera modules. What is needed is high reliability combined with very small packaging."

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Yole publishes "LiDAR for Automotive - Patent Landscape Analysis" tracing the first automotive LiDAR patents back to 1934:

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Yole Developpement is preparing "LiDARs for Automotive and Industrial Applications 2018" report:

"By looking at the different technologies on the market, we can clearly see that the LiDAR market is immature – a ‘work in progress’. Very recent investments of more than $800M over the past three years indicate the ongoing dynamics. The investments are good for technology innovation and production capacity building. The flood of money allows start-ups and manufacturers to prototype and launch pre-series sensors for car and robot-taxi makers who are testing all types of LiDAR internally.

It will take some time to gather feedback and determine what the real requirements are, and that’s why the maturation of LiDAR will take a long time. But time is only one piece of the puzzle; diversity in the technology is also the other tricky aspect to understand this market. From big mechanical rotating LiDAR, MEMS micro-mirrors, to optical phased arrays, or flash LiDAR, the landscape of technologies has never been so diverse. This is a complex situation where time-to-market uncertainty and technology diversity prevents any clear-cut vision of which one will win. With average selling prices (ASPs) ranging from several thousand dollars to $65,000, current LiDAR system are still expensive, which cover a broad range of applications that are still niche markets for now."


Update: EETimes publishes an expanded article "Lidar Tech Today, Lidar Vendors Tomorrow" based on Yole report:

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Xinhua: China's first cloud AI chip was released by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The MLU100 chip was developed by Cambricon Technology to enable accurate and fast big data processing, especially in image and voice search tasks.

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PRNewswire: China-based SmartSens introduces a "starlight class" 1080p60 sensor SC2310, another product based on the SmartClarity NIR-enhancing technology after the introduction of the SC5235.

"Advanced integrated circuit architecture and BSI process gives this series of products exceptional night vision capability, allowing this series of products to present full color images even under extreme low light conditions with minimum illumination."

SC2310 has an optical format of 1/2.7", 3.0um BSI pixel with a sensitivity of 4800mV/Lux·s, a maximum SNR of 43dB, and a DR greater than 100dB. Also, SC2310 includes NIR sensitivity enhancement, allowing the QE at 850-940nm to almost double.

This sensor is targeted to be in mass production by Q2 2018.

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BusinessWire: Samsung introduces a 16MP ISOCELL Slim 3P9 image sensor along with a pre-optimized turnkey camera module to expedite time-to-market.

“Samsung’s ISOCELL image sensors take advantage of various technologies to deliver innovative imaging experiences in mobile devices,” said Ben K. Hur, VP of System LSI marketing at Samsung. “The ISOCELL Plug and Play solution will help reduce time-to-market for set makers and offer a quality-assured camera solution to end-users.”

The Samsung ISOCELL Slim 3P9 is a 1.0μm 16MP image sensor with Tetracell technology that merges four neighboring pixels so that the 3P9 can function as a 2.0μm image sensor for front-facing cameras that can take brighter pictures in low-lit environments.

For faster auto-focusing, the 3P9 PDAF with doubled auto-focus agent density than that of conventional PDAF sensors. In addition, the sensor significantly stabilizes pictures and videos taken while in motion with a gyro-synchronizer that syncs frame exposure time from the sensor with movement data from the device’s gyroscope. Once the data is synced, the mobile processor can simply adjust the frames based on movement rather than rigorously analyzing each frame to detect and compensate for angular movement.

Samsung Plug and Play solution for the 3P9 is a rear camera module made up of parts from different providers. Since the optimization and reliability tests are done beforehand at the module-level rather than on the sensor alone, manufacturers can simply plug the camera module onto their device, saving up to four months of development time.

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Sony presents a new line of global shutter sensors with 9um-large pixels:


Sony also unveils a new lineup of automotive HDR image sensors with LED flicker mitigation:

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Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany (FAU) proposes a low fill factor pixels pseudo-randomly rotated in the pixel array to improve resolution by a factor of 4 and avoid alias artifacts. Microlens usage and complicated signal routing in the pixel array are not mentioned:

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PRWeb: Algolux has closed a $10M Series A funding round led by GM Ventures. The syndicate includes Drive Capital, Intact Ventures, and a follow-on investment from Real Ventures.

“Safety is the overriding priority for autonomous vehicle development. Complete autonomy will only be realized through a leap in perception and inference performance. Algolux’s unique machine learning applications can accelerate the realization of these performance gains for next generation perception stacks, and thus accelerate the advancement of safe autonomous transportation," said Jason Nolte, GM Ventures Investment Manager.

“Drive Capital is passionate about enabling the next generation of sensing systems, with a strong focus on how artificial intelligence can advance the state of the art. We’re excited to be an early investor in Algolux because we believe the company’s powerful approach to addressing the challenges in computer vision will accelerate phenomenal growth in the market for perception systems,” said Mark Kvamme, Partner at Drive Capital.

“We are delighted to welcome GM Ventures, Drive Capital and Intact Ventures to Algolux. As the number of cameras more than triple to over 45 billion in the next 5 years, providers will be challenged to meet the demand for complex technical specifications, especially with regards to safety in the automotive industry,” said Allan Benchetrit, co-founder and CEO. “Our growing customer engagement and the recognition from industry and strategic investors clearly validate that Algolux is filling a market need through increased vision system effectiveness, quicker time-to-market, and considerable cost savings.”

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SeekingAlpha: ON Semi Q1 2018 earnings call updates on the company's image sensor business:

"We continue to further strengthen our position in imaging market for automotive and industrial applications and demand outlook for our imaging products continues to strengthen.

We continue to see strong demand for our image sensors for ADAS applications. With a complete line of image sensors, including 1, 2, and 8 megapixels, we are the only provider of complete range of pixel densities on a single platform for the next generation ADAS and autonomous driving applications. We believe that a complete line of image sensors on a single platform provides us with significant competitive advantage, and we continue working to extend our technology lead over our competitors.

Our design win pipeline for ADAS continues to grow at a rapid pace. We are actively engaged with our ecosystem partners for development of next-generation ADAS systems, and we remain the primary image sensor partner for leading ADAS and autonomous driving technology leaders. Driven by our technology lead, we are seeing strong traction for our image sensors for ADAS applications in China.

In the machine vision market, we continued our momentum with our Python line of image sensors. According to Yole Development, a leading market research firm, ON Semiconductor is the leader in image sensors for industrial applications. With leadership in industrial and automotive markets, ON Semiconductor has emerged as a powerhouse for the most demanding and challenging imaging applications. As I indicated on previous earnings calls, we continue to develop synergies with our expertise in the automotive imaging market to accelerate our growth in the machine vision market as both of these markets are driven by artificial intelligence and face similar challenges, such as low light conditions, dynamic range and harsh operating environments.

The image sensor piece, overall we’ve been managing the consumer part down as a margin play, so growth in total was much higher for the automotive image sensors than is reflected there in the division. The actual sequential for automotive up 20% year over-year, yes, so that’s actually substantially higher for that piece of the business."

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DPReview: Corephotonics files another lawsuit on its dual camera patent infringement, now covering its most recently granted patent and the latest iPhone X and iPhone 8. The patent was granted in January 2018, after the iPhone X and iPhone 8 release, but, I guess, the patent application has been published some time before that.

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Caeleste unveils CAE301 “ELFIS” image sensor based on LFoundry LF11IS BSI process:

Features:

• 1920x1080 pixels
• 15 μm pixel pitch
• Global shutter using a “GS” CMOS technology with buried storage node
• TID, SEU and SEL rad-hard design
• QE > 90% by backside illumination
• Read noise using CDS 2.5 e-RMS
• QFW in HDR mode 250000 e-
• “True” HDR based on the patented “3-level TG” method, reaching a single exposure, single integration time, synchronous DR > 100dB

The sensor is intended for high-end applications such as space missions earth and sky observation, scientific high speed imaging, and imaging in nuclear environment.


Caeleste also presents an imager for pushbroom cameras and a stand-alone rad-hard ADC for cryogenic and space applications.

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TI OPT8320 3D ToF SoC integrates pixel array, timing generator, ADC, depth engine, and illumination driver. The built-in depth engine computes the depth data from the digitized sensor data. In addition to the phase data, the depth engine provides auxiliary information consisting of amplitude, ambient, and flags for each pixel and the full-array statistical information in the form of a histogram. As a fully integrated solution, it stands out in the company's ToF lineup:

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BusinessWire: SiOnyx reports that its Kickstarter launch for the SiOnyx Aurora, the HD action video camera with day and night color imaging, has achieved a 3X past its target of $50K in the first 4 days of its public debut:

• In less than 3.5 hours, SiOnyx passed its $50K goal
• In less than 48 hours, SiOnyx exceeded 200% of goal
• In less than 72 hours, Aurora became the #2 ranked product under the Design and Tech Category/Camera Category
• In less than 72 hours, Aurora became the #46 project overall, out of more than 3700 ongoing projects
• More than 400 backers and growing

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