Archives for February 2019

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Omnivision booth at SPIE BIOS EXPO 2019 shows a multitude of image sensor-based checks for a human body:

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Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Arstechnica publishes an article "How 10 leading companies are trying to make powerful, low-cost lidar" by Timothy Lee:

"...over the last year, I've gotten a steady stream of pitches from lidar companies, and I've talked to as many of them as I could. Ars has now been in contact with senior executives from at least eight lidar companies as well as others involved in the industry as customers or analysts. These conversations have provided a lot of insight not only into trends in the lidar industry in general but also about the technology and business strategy of individual companies."


Thanks to TG for the pointer.

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Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Facial recognition technology finds more and more applications. Ecns.cn reports that Baidu Brain engineer has incorporated AI into a nearly two-meter-tall shelter for abandoned cats. The multi-level cat shelter includes a camera at the entrance that only opens the door when it recognizes the approaching animal is a cat. The shelter's facial recognition software can identify the faces of 174 different cats, report on the cat's state of health and whether the feline has been spayed or neutered.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation IFF developed a scanner and analysis software in collaboration with the Saxony-Anhalt State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology, which digitally capture the visual features of coins and recognize them in a matter of seconds. The scanning system can be used to identify and recognize coin finds. The novel scanner O.S.C.A.R., short for Optical System for Coin Analysis and Recognition, not only scans coins’ visual features but also the minutest signs of wear such as scratching, clipping, contours, edges, pitting and denting, which render an object unique.

Coin surface scan

CNA Insider publishes 3 more use cases for facial recognition:



Oleksii Kharkovyna publishes many more facial recognition use cases in his Medium post "Facial Recognition And AI: Latest Developments And Future Directions," such as:

• Usage for workflow. In Japan, AI-equipped cameras will continuously analyze facial expressions of workers to improve their productivity. If they are caught sleeping during the work, they could be blasted with freezing air.
• At the Dubai Airport, a virtual aquarium is fitted with 80 facial recognition cameras that examine people as they walk through the aquarium. The system will identify a person who has problems with the law, even without his/her knowing.

BiometricUpdate reports that UK and France have made it illegal to hide your face to avoid facial recognition.

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Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Sony quarterly earnings report reveals 8% YoY lower image sensor sales siting lower mobile image sensor demand. The next fiscal year forecast is reduced by 6%:

• FY18 Q3 sales decreased 8% year-on-year to 230.3 billion yen, primarily due to a decrease in unit sales of image sensors for mobile devices.
• Operating income decreased 14.0 billion yen year-on-year to 46.5 billion yen.
• We have downwardly revised our FY18 sales forecast to 870 billion yen and operating income to 130 billion yen.
• This downward revision is primarily due to a reduction in the unit sales forecast for image sensors resulting from a deterioration in the smartphone market.
• Although we expect the difficult market environment for smartphones to continue going forward, we are seeing high-end sensors adopted in both highend and mid-range models as smartphone makers seek to differentiate their products through camera functionality.
• Consequently, there is no change to our view that demand for the high-end image sensors that Sony excels at making will continue to increase due to the trend toward multi-lens cameras and larger die-sizes. There is also no change to the plan I recently outlined to increase our production capacity to nearly the maximum that can fit into our existing facilities.

SeekingAlpha publishes the earnings call transcript with few more details on Sony expectations from the 2019 business:

"So the third quarter rate of operation of the semiconductors as well as what's our view on the first half of fiscal '19. Currently for the third quarter fiscal '18 the wafers on an average 99,000, 99K and this is along the line of October forecast. In the fourth quarter of fiscal '18, wafer injection number is on an average 89K. And for fiscal 2019, it is very difficult to cite a specific number, so I like to communicate to you basic way of thinking.

So the smartphone market units for fiscal '19, it is expected to foresee any growth, probably the unit sales would decline. That is the forecast held up by most of the market related people. But on the other end multi-lens cameras as well as a large size imagers that's the trend which will be accelerated further over our October forecast throughout fiscal 2019, so those are both positive and negative factors for us.

So how we forecast the outcome of that? In any case as far as fiscal '19 is concerned, the market condition will be very tough. So we would like to be conservative and carefully manage the business in a steadfast manner.

In case of Semiconductor basically, the demand immediately around us is weakened. As you know, our image sensors takes about five months from the introduction of wafer to shipment that lead time five months. Therefore the level of inventory at the end of December in 2018 was a little heavy even in view of the smartphone shipment in 2019. And we are taking measures to adjust the inventory to the appropriate level but towards the year-end, in view of the immediate situation, inventory level appears to be a little heavier."

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Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Arxiv.org paper "Determining Image Sensor Temperature Using Dark Current" by Richard Matthews, Matthew Sorrel, Nickolas Falkner from University of Adelaide, Australia claims that the authors were able to observe pixel variations in SEM:

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