Archives for September 2018

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Omnivision patent application US20180249105 "Image Sensor with Two-Dimensional Split Dual Photodiode Pairs" by Gang Chen, Qin Wang, Duli Mao, and Lindsay Grant proposes cross-type PDAF pixels that are also used for a regular image sensing:

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IHS Markit estimates Apple iPhone Xs Max camera components cost at $51.10 out of the total BOM of $390:

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Sony officially unveils IMX250MZR / MYR polarization sensitive image sensors. The IMX250MZR monochromatic version is available now, while color IMX250MYR is expected to be available in December 2018. The 5.07MP sensors use 3.45µm global shutter pixel with four-directional polarizer formed on the photodiode:


"With conventional types of polarization sensors, the polarizer is attached on top of the on-chip lens layer (Fig.2), however with Sony Semiconductor Solutions’ polarization sensor the polarizer is formed on chip under the on-chip lens layer (Fig.3). A shorter distance between the polarizer and the photodiode improves the extinction ratio and the incident angle dependence.

Since the polarizer is formed during the semiconductor process, form and formulation of polarizer, uniformity, mass productivity and durability are excellent compared to conventional polarization sensors. Furthermore, Sony Semiconductor Solutions’ Polarization sensor is covered with an anti-reflection layer which helps to reduce reflectance and avoids poor flare and ghost characteristics.

By creating a unique air gap structure in the polarizer, it enables excellent polarization properties and sensitivity in a broad band from visible to near infrared. It also has an advantage of excellent image quality in various light source environments by introducing the world's first anti-reflection layer to reduce flare and ghost for polarization sensor."


The company shows a number of examples where polarization imaging has advantages:

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Apple keeps filing continuation applications for its stacked pixel patent filed more than 4 years ago. The most recent continuation is named "Image Sensor Having Full Well Capacity Beyond Photodiode Capacity" by Xiaofeng Fan. The company proposes a selectable single or dual exposure control in a wafer stacked structure with per-pixel interconnects:

"The full well capacity of photodiodes in image sensors generally determines the exposure time, and may also affect the signal to noise ratio and/or the dynamic range of the image sensor. In some embodiments, the full well capacity of the photodiodes in the image sensor may be dynamically adjusted to allow longer exposure times, reducing blooming artifacts in captured images, and to increase the dynamic range of the image sensor. In one embodiment, the image sensor may transfer charge from the photodiode to a storage node one or more times during integration (e.g., the exposure time frame). Transferring the charge during integration may allow the full well capacity of the photodiode to be increased beyond the hardware imposed well capacity. Additionally, because the full well capacity may be varied without changing the hardware of the image sensor, the full well capacity can be dynamically varied allowing the image sensor to adjust to different lighting conditions, image capturing settings (e.g., video or still photographs), as well as allow a user to adjust the exposure time as desired without increasing blooming artifacts.

The storage node 702 may have an increased capacitance to accommodate multiple charge transfers from the photodiode 154. For example, the storage node 702 may be sufficiently large to accommodate double (or more) the capacity of the photodiode 154. This allows the storage node 702 to store charge from multiple charge transfers from the photodiode 154 as the integration time of the photodiode 154 is increased over the hardware implemented full well capacity."

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Panasonic is developing a 3D ToF image sensor for AI-based advanced driver monitoring systems. The ToF image sensor has 5.6um pixel optimized for high sensitivity at 940nm wavelength to operate under bright sunlight. This sensor is AEC-Q100 Grade2 compliant and is designed to be used for next-generation in-cabin applications such as gesture-based user interfaces and driver monitoring.

The company's ToF web page also shows smartphone and industrial applications for its sensor:


Fujitsu UK offers ToF Camera Development Kit:

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Pioneer announces that from late September, the company will sequentially start shipping three types and four models of 3D-LiDAR sensors, which adopt the MEMS mirror method and differ in measurement distance: “Telescopic LiDAR”, “Medium-range LiDAR” and “Short-range LiDAR.” Pioneer is developing a high-performance, downsizing, lower price 3D-LiDAR using a MEMS mirror, aiming for mass production in the 2020s. Pioneer provided its first sample for testing September 2017 to companies in Japan and overseas.

In response to diverse customer needs, Pioneer is also developing the wobbling scanning method of “Wide-view LiDAR” in addition to the raster scanning method.

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RED introduces a camera for shooting immersive 360 degree VR content featuring 16 fish eye cameras with 8K 60fps Super 35mm Helium sensor each (active area 29.9 x 15.77mm2, 3.65um pixels).




Thanks to AL for the pointer!

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Facebook Oculus announces its next generation stand-alone VR headset - Oculus Quest. While most of its spec is hidden yet, the headset is said to be equipped by 4 wide-angle cameras to enable 6DoF:

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Geneva, Switzerland-based ID Quantique launches the fruit of its cooperation with SK Telecom - an image sensor-based Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) chip - Quantis.

"At its core, the QRNG chip contains a light-emitting diode (LED) and an image sensor. Due to quantum noise, the LED emits a random number of photons, which are captured and counted by the image sensor’s pixels, giving a series of raw random numbers. These numbers are fed to a randomness-extraction algorithm which distills the entropy of quantum origin and makes it available to the user.

Based on a technology concept and patent from IDQ, and designed and manufactured by SK Telekom, the Quantum RNG Chip harnesses true quantum randomness from the shot noise of a light source captured by a CMOS image sensor"

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ALA News: Isorg, a maker of printed organic photodetectors and large-area image sensors, raises €24M in a Series B round. New Science Ventures (NSV), a US-based investment firm and Bpifrance, through its fund Large Venture, are leading the round alongside Financière Fonds Privés (FFP) and current investors, Sofimac Innovation, CEA Investissement and Dynalim. The Series A round of €7.9M took place in 2014. Isorg’s technology can be used in smartphones, wearables, tablets and laptops, biometrics for homeland security and medical imaging.

The €24M funding will be used to support the qualification steps of its production site based in Limoges, France and continue the development of subsystems ready to be integrated in the various applications. It will support the work to enable large-scale commercialization in the coming years.

“We are heading towards launching the large-scale commercialization of our image sensors and other printed electronics solutions, which are in high demand among manufacturers of consumer electronics and biometric devices,” said Jean-Yves Gomez, CEO and co-founder of Isorg.

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TechInsights iPhone XS Max teardown has been updated with the cost analysis of the new model vs the last year iPhone X:

Components cost estimation
	Apple iPhone XS Max A1921	Apple iPhone X A1091
Applications Processor/Modems	$72.00	$66.22
Battery	$9.00	$6.46
Connectivity & Sensors	$18.00	$17.11
Cameras	$44.00	$42.80
Display	$80.50	$77.27
Memory	$64.50	$45.35
Mixed Signal/RF	$23.00	$23.31
Power Management/Audio	$14.50	$14.16
Other Electronics	$35.00	$32.51
Mechanicals/Housings	$58.00	$45.71
Test/Assembly/Supporting Materials	$24.50	$24.55
Total	$443.00	$395.44

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TWEPP Conference publishes Guy Meinants' (AMS) presentation "Low Noise Global Shutter Pixels And Readout Circuits For CMOS Image Sensors." A few slides from the 69-slide long presentation:

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TechInsights teardown of iPhone Xs reveals that:

"Our early camera teardown effort has been focused on the 12 MP resolution wide-angle camera, promoted as a new, larger sensor with bigger, deeper pixels. The iPhone XS Max wide-angle camera chip is a stacked imager sourced from Sony and features a 7.01 mm x 5.79 mm (40.6 mm2) die size. This compares to 5.21 mm x 6.29 mm (32.8 mm2) for the iPhone 8/X wide-angle camera chips.

We confirmed the iPhone XS Max’s wide-angle camera pixel pitch of 1.4 µm (up from 1.22 µm) and immediately noticed the increased density of Focus Pixels compared to last year’s iPhone 8/X. The term Focus Pixels is Apple’s branding of masked phase detection autofocus (PDAF) pixels and the higher Focus Pixel count translates to more regions available as autofocus points. Focus Pixels were introduced in 2014 for iPhone 6 and at that time featured left and right-masked Focus Pixel pairs. In 2017 Apple moved from a paired to shared Focus Pixel strategy, where top/bottom masked pixels were added and all were evenly distributed within selected rows/columns. Apple has implemented all of its wide-angle Focus Pixels in the green channel."

12 MP wide-angle camera image sensor die with removed CFA

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Nikkei: Fujitsu unveils an image compression technology that reduce the file size to 0.1% of the original one, aimed to self-driving applications.

The new algorithm is said to compress data with 1,000:1 ratio, while still maintaining its usability for AI ML algorithms. By reducing the volume of data, cars can send high-resolution images over the internet to data centers in real time.

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PRNewswire: OmniVision announces two new additions to its family of global shutter sensors—the OG02B1B/OG02B10 and the OV9285. These new sensors are aimed to be cost-effective solutions for consumer and industrial machine vision applications.

“Machine vision applications are experiencing strong growth, fueled by increased demand for industrial automation and new use cases such as augmented reality and virtual reality. Meanwhile, computer vision algorithms are becoming more and more sophisticated, which in turn drives up the performance requirements of image sensors,” said Sanjay Kumar, senior marketing manager at OmniVision. “We are excited to offer these high-resolution and high-performance global shutter image sensors to the machine vision community, enabling new applications and new use cases.”

The 2-megapixel OG02B1B (monochrome) and the OG02B10 (color) image sensors provide 1600 x 1300 resolution in a 1/2.9-inch optical format and a 15-degree CRA to support wide field-of-view lens designs. This combination of color imaging and CRA is excellent for applications such as agricultural drones that must capture high-resolution color images for crop and field monitoring.

The OV9285 provides an even more cost-effective option, with a 1.48-megapixel or 1328 x 1120 resolution, the ability to capture video at 90 fps and an optical format of 1/3.4-inch with a CRA of 9 degrees.

Both sensors are built on 3um OmniPixel3-GS pixel technology. It provides high QE and NIR sensitivity at 850nm and 940nm, which reduces power consumption and extends device battery life.

The OG02B1B, OG02B10 and OV9285 image sensors are available now.

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University of Toronto repo publishes a Nature paper from January 2017 "Solution-processed semiconductors for next-generation photodetectors" by F. Pelayo García de Arquer, Ardalan Armin, Paul Meredith, and Edward H. Sargent.

"Efficient light detection is central to modern science and technology. Current photodetectors mainly use photodiodes based on crystalline inorganic elemental semiconductors, such as silicon, or compounds such as III–V semiconductors. Photodetectors made of solution-processed semiconductors — which include organic materials, metal-halide perovskites and quantum dots — have recently emerged as candidates for next-generation light sensing. They combine ease of processing, tailorable optoelectronic properties, facile integration with complementary metal–oxide–semiconductors, compatibility with flexible substrates and good performance. Here, we review the recent advances and the open challenges in the field of solution-processed photodetectors, examining the topic from both the materials and the device perspective and highlighting the potential of the synergistic combination of materials and device engineering. We explore hybrid phototransistors and their potential to overcome trade-offs in noise, gain and speed, as well as the rapid advances in metal-halide perovskite photodiodes and their recent application in narrowband filterless photodetection."

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Autosens announces its 2018 Awards in a number of categories:

Most Engaging Content:

• First place: Junko Yoshida, EE Times
• Silver award: Marco Jacobs, videantis
• Silver award: Stephan Giesler, 2025AD

Hardware Innovation:

• First place: Robert Bosch
• Silver award: Renesas Electronics
• Silver award: OmniVision Technologies

Software Innovation:

• First place: Algolux
• Silver award: Brodmann17
• Silver award: Prophesee

Most Exciting Start-Up:

• First place: AEye Inc
• Silver award: Metamoto
• Silver award: Arbe Robotics

Game Changer:

• First place: Marc Geese, Robert Bosch
• Silver award: Intel Corporation
• Silver award: NVIDIA & Continental Partnership

Greatest Exploration:

• First place: Prof Alexander Braun of the University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf
• Silver award: Ding Zhao of University of Michigan
• Silver award: Prof Philip Koopman of Carnegie Mellon University

Best Outreach Project:

• First place: Udacity
• Silver award: North West Advanced Programming Workshop Programme (NWAPW)
• Silver award: Detroit Autonomous Vehicle Group

AutoSens Inspiration Award:

• Winner: North West Advanced Programming Workshop Programme (NWAPW)

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PRNewswire: ActLight, a Swiss technology startup developing Dynamic PhotoDiodes (DPDs), announces that the results of its internal tests performed on its most recent technology developments show a device sensitivity that reached the single photon level.

Moreover, the tests confirmed that the sensitivity of the DPD is tunable (i.e. at 2, 3, 5 or 7 photons) with very positive impact on the dynamic range of the device. Important to note is that the brilliant results were achieved at 1.5V bias voltage and with devices manufactured using a standard CMOS 180nm technology.

"It's great that today we are among a selected few innovative technologies to have a talk at the Imaging & Sensors Summit, a great opportunity to present our recent developments in the low voltage single photon sensitivity," said Serguei Okhonin, ActLight Co-Founder and CEO. "And we strongly believe that our DPDs can inspire innovation and enhance user experience in main stream applications such as smartphones and others."

In another presentation, ActLight announces a ToF sensor prototype based on its DPD (see demo video here):

"In current 3D camera sensors, pixel scaling is limited due to complex analog circuits. The DPD's simple digital front-end allows decreasing pixel size below 5 um. Moreover, the DPD and its read-out front-end circuit are implemented on the same substrate in standard low-cost CMOS technology and do not require high voltage for its operation."

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Gpixel announces the GMAX3265, a 65MP image sensor with 3.2µm charge domain global shutter pixel. “GMAX3265 is defined in close collaboration with leading industry partners in inspection vision systems, as such are we confident that the unique features of GMAX3265 will meet the most demanding requirements for industrial inspection, machine vision and metrology applications”, said Wim Wuyts, Chief Commercial Officer of Gpixel.

GMAX3265 offers 9344 (H) x 7000 (V) charge global shutter pixels with read noise of less than 2e-, higher than 70dB DR, and 1e-/p/s dark current at room temperature. Due to the light pipe technology, the sensor exhibits excellent shutter efficiency of 1/30,000 and large angular response.

Consisting of 56 pairs sub-LVDS data output channel and each running at maximum 1.08 Gbit/s, GMAX3265 delivers 85 fps at 10bit output or 53 fps at 12bit output. The high resolution and fast frame rate significantly increases the system throughput for industrial inspection applications, such as semiconductor, PCB, AOI or display inspection.

“We understand short time-to-market is essential in today’s competing environment, and at Gpixel, we put a lot of effort in technical and logistic support to enable customers a fast go to market timing. This combined with our long term commitment and product strategy is essential for the success of our growing customer base and Gpixel.”, said Wim.

GMAX3265 will begin sampling in early Q4 2018, with mass production scheduled in end of Q1 2019 for both color and mono version.

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Dartmouth College publishes an article about its spin-off Gigajot:

"Gigajot Technology, based in Pasadena, California, aims to bring a variety of products to market using the Quanta Image Sensor (QIS) which makes it possible to produce sharp images in extremely low light. They intend to target high-end scientific research and medical imaging markets at first, but could eventually compete in much larger consumer markets.

“QIS is a platform technology,” says Gigajot CEO Saleh Masoodian, a 2017 Dartmouth engineering PhD graduate who cofounded the company with Fossum and fellow Thayer alum and Gigajot CTO Jiaju Ma Th'17. “Down the road, there are additional markets we can serve, such as security, automotive, and other niche applications.”

“Not only can our imager capture the photons in a very dim scene, but also it can resolve the number of photons and give you a much better quality picture,” says Masoodian, adding that the sensors can be manufactured using current CMOS processes, which he says translates to a high production yield at lower costs.

Masoodian says he hopes to see the company launch its first product-ready QIS camera for use in these niche markets within the next two to three years."

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OSA Optica publishes a paper "Super-resolution quantum imaging at the Heisenberg limit" by Manuel Unternährer, Bänz Bessire, Leonardo Gasparini, Matteo Perenzoni, and André Stefanov from University of Bern and Fondazione Bruno Kessler FBK.

"The Abbe–Rayleigh diffraction limit constrains spatial resolution for classical imaging methods. Quantum imaging exploits correlations between photons to reproduce structures with higher resolution. Quantum-correlated ?-photon states were shown to potentially surpass the classical limit by a factor of 1/?, corresponding to the Heisenberg limit, using a method known as optical centroid measurement (OCM). In this work, the theory of OCM is reformulated for its application in imaging. Using entangled photon pairs and a recently developed integrated time-resolving detector array, OCM is implemented in a proof-of-principle experiment that demonstrates the expected enhancement. Those results show the relevance of entanglement for imaging at the Heisenberg limit."

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TI video promotes its ToF solution:

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French Space Agency (CNES) announces Call for Abstracts for 2 workshops to be held in Toulouse:

Radiation effects on solid state optoelectronic detectors on November 27-28, 2018
Ultra-Violet Detectors and Instruments on November 28-29, 2018

"The goal is to bring together all the community to discuss the challenges to develop such sensors and instruments, to discuss previous mission lessons and to share about future projects.

Although the workshop is mostly oriented to space applications, this event is fully open to researchers/user working within other applications. Developers working on non-space applications dealing with the same topics (e;g; Astronomy, Medical Imaging, photolithography…) are equally welcome to participate to this Workshop."

The workshops also features 45min tutorials.

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Trioptics publishes a Youtube video showing its ProCam active alighnemt system:

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