Archives for February 2020

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Sony Semiconductor Solutions Japan announces a re-org:

• Establish an in-vehicle product division.
• Reorganize the wafer line technology division and the Kumamoto, Nagasaki, Yamagata, and Oita production divisions by function, and establish a new wafer production division, manufacturing technology division, assembly production division, and quality control division.
• The head of the mobile sector will be newly established as a position to manage all production activities (design, development, and manufacturing) related to the mobile image sensor business at the corporate level.
• Establish a new head of IS / Automotive Sector as a position to manage at the corporate level overall production activities (design, development, and manufacturing) related to the image sensor business other than for mobile devices and the automotive image sensor business.
• A new 300-cm production center manager will be established to manage the entire production of 300-mm wafers at the Kumamoto, Nagasaki, Yamagata, and Oita Technology Centers.

Sony Imaging and Sensing Technology page presents the company's vision of its key advantages:

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SemiconductorToday notes KAIST paper in Electron Device Letters "Monolithic 3D Integration of InGaAs Photodetectors on Si MOSFETs Using Sequential Fabrication Process" by Dae-Myeong Geum, Seong Kwang Kim, Subin Lee, Donghwan Lim, Hyung-Jun Kim, Chang Hwan Choi, and Sang-Hyeon Kim proposing a stacked process for SWIR pixel:

"We demonstrated the monolithic 3D (M3D) integration of InGaAs photodetectors (PDs) on silicon-on-insulator metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (SOI-MOSFETs) by the sequential process of InGaAs PDs on pre-fabricated SOI-MOSFETs. InGaAs PDs and SOI MOSFETs showed their original performances after integration and sequential process thanks to the low-temperature process. In addition, the integrated devices successfully performed the fundamental readout circuit operation such as direct injection and source follower per detector (SFD) by connecting transistors (Trs) and PDs. By illuminating 1550 nm laser on InGaAs PDs, the different behaviors of output voltages were clearly obtained according to the Tr’s on/off state. From these results, we believe that this monolithic 3D integration method could be a feasible approach toward high-resolution multicolor imaging systems."

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StrategyAnalytics statistics of Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ 5G users shows that photography is the single most used feature of the device taking more than 20% of the use time.

Correction: The 20.1% part is probably games. Photography is minuscule 1.3%, unfortunately.

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IFNews quotes Laoyaoba.com site saying that Omnivision plans to restore its production capacity to about 70% by the end of February by "optimizing the overtime mode of production line employees." The company expects to return to 100% capacity in March.

Omnivision manufactures 400 to 500 million CMOS sensors per year. The company is said to consumes 200,000 12-inch wafers each year.

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EMVA Tube publishes a number of webinars on image sensor imperfections in EMVA 1288 standard, presented by Prof. Bernd Jähne from Heidelberg University, Germany:

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Digitimes reports that Taiwan-based CIS backend services company Tong Hsing Electronic Industries has disclosed plans to double monthly production capacity to 150,000-160,000 wafers by end-2020, according to the company's chairman Pierre Chen.

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Techinsights starts publishing Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G teardown analysis, including its 43.7MP GH1 sensor:

"The GH1, which uses ISOCELL Plus technology, has a reported resolution of 7968 x 5840 (43.7 MP). The Tetracell color filter array is in use and manipulating the contrast on our optical images we can see an artifact of the Super-PD phase detection autofocus (PDAF) pixel pattern. We have documented Samsung using masked and 2x1 on-chip lens (OCL) PDAF on different 0.8 µm generation sensors. Here at the 0.7 µm generation we expect only 2x1 OCL PDAF will be used, as on the GH1.

One other topic to mention on this world’s first 0.7 µm pixel sensor is the stacked chip interconnect strategy. The through silicon via (TSV) arrays visible in our die photograph show us immediately that Samsung has not yet adopted a Cu-Cu direct bond interconnect strategy as we have observed in Sony and TSMC fabricated imagers."

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IEEE Spectrum: "It’s time for another revolution in imaging technology. This one will be brought to you by the quantum dot, a nanometer-size particle of semiconductor material, which acts much differently from its bulk counterpart."

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PRNewswire: Anitoa has demonstrated a solution for rapid on-site nucleic acid test of the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). Anitoa combines a high performance ultra-portable Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR) instrument called Maverick, with an innovative "one-step" reverse transcription qPCR (RT-qPCR) reagent for testing 2019-nCoV.

Maverick is powered by a unique CMOS biosensor chip developed by Anitoa. The CMOS biosensor integrates many sensing and processing functions necessary for qPCR in a single silicon chip, thus significantly reducing the footprint and cost of the device.

Having a R&D center in Hangzhou China, Anitoa tested its solution in hospitals and CDC-labs of China with actual patient samples. Early test results with Maverick solution showed a 97% accuracy, with 99% specificity.

"We are encouraged by the very promising performance results of the Maverick solution in detecting the 2019 new coronavirus. We want to contribute everything we have to help fight and prevent the spread of this terrible and deadly disease," says Zhimin Ding, CEO of Anitoa Systems.

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CEA-LETI publishes Lina Kadura's PhD Thesis "New FDSOI-based integrated circuit architectures sensitive to light for imaging applications."

"A new type of light sensor called FDPix, composed of one transistor (1T) per pixel is investigated. It consists in co-integrating an FDSOI (Fully-Depleted Silicon-On-Insulator) transistor with a photodiode to enable light sensing through optical back biasing. The absorption of photons and resulting photogenerated charges in the diode will result in a Light Induced VT Shift (LIVS). The LIVS is due to a capacitive coupling between the front and back gate of the FDSOI transistor and represents the key performance metric to be extracted and optimized. In this work, the device behavior in dc and transient domains was thoroughly investigated and modeled. Although not limited to this node, all the devices tested were fabricated using 28nm node FDSOI technology. By means of TCAD simulations and opto-electrical characterization, the device parameters such as Body Factor (BF) and junction profile were optimized to improve its performance. It was found that the FDPix is in fact a dual response sensor. It exhibits a linear response at low light intensity which results in high sensitivity, and a logarithmic response at higher intensities that ensures a high dynamic range (DR) of more than 120dB. The dedicated developed model is implemented in SPICE environment for circuit design. New pixel circuit in analog and digital domain, based on the FDPix were designed, fabricated, and tested. The results obtained and presented in this work, shows the potential of using the FDPix sensor for smart, highly embedded, low power image sensors for More-than-Moore applications."

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imec SPIE AR/VR/MR presentation has a number of interesting slides about its imaging technology:

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poLight announces that it has received a purchase order of approximately NOK 250,000 of TLens and ASIC drivers. The purchase order is related to the two smartwatch phone design-wins announced earlier in 2020.

“We are still in the early days since the market launch of the two smartwacthes and therefore very pleased to see the customer returning to refill its stock of TLens,” said Øyvind Isaksen, the CEO of poLight.

Following this order, an accumulated order intake of NOK 2,3 millions for TLens and ASIC drivers has so far been ordered related to the two smartwatch phone releases.

The watch targets a growing market tailored for children in China. The watch camera which is used to take pictures is based on the AF function delivered by poLight.

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Huawei opens a new R&D center in Belgium and one of its charters is image sensor design, as its affiliated headhunter states in his email: "Huawei is looking for .... a 3D Image Sensor Chip Circuit Architect/Manager"

We are looking for Image Sensor Chip Circuit Architect/Manager, and the responsibility includes:

• Develop a image sensor chip readout circuit architecture, decompose the chip system design specifications and perform corresponding design constraints on each readout module; at the same time, coordinate the pixel design team to complete the circuit design and backend implementation.
• Propose related key technologies of circuits to improve the core competitiveness of the chip, including readout noise reduction, power consumption reduction at high frame rate, and high dynamic range.

The job candidates should have "many experience in mass production of image sensor chip products; solves design or engineering problems in the process from sample to mass production."

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IPVM has tested four facial recognition systems and they all have difficulties with masks:



The same problem has also been reported for smartphone FaceID unlock. But, as the say, "Every Problem is an Opportunity in Disguise." A San Francisco-based company offers photo-printing on protective masks that is claimed to solve the FaceID hurdles:

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Nature paper "Noise-tolerant single photon sensitive three-dimensional imager" by Patrick Rehain, Yong Meng Sua, Shenyu Zhu, Ivan Dickson, Bharathwaj Muthuswamy, Jeevanandha Ramanathan, Amin Shahverdi, and Yu-Ping Huang from Stevens Institute of Technology, NJ, proposes to solve a fundamental problem of distinguishing between signal and and ambient photons:

"Active imagers capable of reconstructing 3-dimensional (3D) scenes in the presence of strong background noise are highly desirable for many sensing and imaging applications. A key to this capability is the time-resolving photon detection that distinguishes true signal photons from the noise. To this end, quantum parametric mode sorting (QPMS) can achieve signal to noise exceeding by far what is possible with typical linear optics filters, with outstanding performance in isolating temporally and spectrally overlapping noise. Here, we report a QPMS-based 3D imager with exceptional detection sensitivity and noise tolerance. With only 0.0006 detected signal photons per pulse, we reliably reconstruct the 3D profile of an obscured scene, despite 34-fold spectral-temporally overlapping noise photons, within the 6 ps detection window (amounting to 113,000 times noise per 20 ns detection period). Our results highlight a viable approach to suppress background noise and measurement errors of single photon imager operation in high-noise environments."

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Part 3 of ISSCC review starts with Taiwan National Tsing Hua University paper "A 0.8V Multimode Vision Sensor for Motion and Saliency Detection with Ping-Pong PWM Pixel" by Tzu-Hsiang Hsu, Yen-Kai Chen, Jun-Shen Wu, Wen-Chien Ting, Cheng-Te Wang, Chen-Fu Yeh, Syuan-Hao Sie, Yi-Ren Chen, Ren-Shuo Liu, Chung-Chuan Lo, Kea-Tiong Tang, Meng-Fan Chang, and Chih-Cheng Hsieh.


Prophesee and Sony paper "A 1280 x 720 Back-Illuminated Stacked Temporal Contrast Event-based Vision Sensor with 4.86μm Pixels, 1.066GEPS Readout, Programmable Event Rate Controller and Compressive Data Formatting Pipeline" by Thomas Finateu, Atsumi Niwa, Daniel Matolin, Koya Tsuchimoto, Andrea Mascheroni, Etienne Reynaud, Pooria Mostafalu, Frederick Brady, Ludovic Chotard, Florian LeGoff, Hirotsugu Takahashi, Hayato Wakabayashi, Yusuke Oike,
and Christoph Posch presents the latest results of the cooperation:

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IFNews quotes CLSA report revising smartphone camera market growth expectations due to coronavirus impact:

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EETimes reporter Junko Yoshida publishes an article "Sony, Prophesee Open ‘Pandora’s Box’ in AI Sensing." Few quotes:

“Given the nature of our technology that uses a lot of transistors, electronics and photodiodes, working with Sony was always our first choice,” [Prophesee CEO Luca] Verre told EE Times. The companies started to work together in 2017. Verre promised that samples of the first stacked event-based vision sensors will be available in 2020.

Prophesee CEO Verre noted that Sony’s role in the partnership is not limited to a foundry. With solid knowledge and an IP portfolio of its own in event-based technology, Verre said, “We came to the table with a clear idea as to how we wanted to design pixels.” The two companies’ collaborative efforts made possible the new event-driven sensor design — from analog, logic and power — combined with Sony’s advanced manufacturing process.

The relationship isn’t a pure R&D exercise either, noted Verre. The intention is to maintain a long-term partnership that will bring the technology to the commercial market while developing applications."

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MDPI paper "Single-Pixel MEMS Imaging Systems" by Guangcan Zhou, Zi Heng Lim, Yi Qi, and Guangya Zhou from National University of Singapore reviews the scanning approaches:

"Single-pixel imaging technology is an attractive technology considering the increasing demand of imagers that can operate in wavelengths where traditional cameras have limited efficiency. Meanwhile, the miniaturization of imaging systems is also desired to build affordable and portable devices for field applications. Therefore, single-pixel imaging systems based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) is an effective solution to develop truly miniaturized imagers, owing to their ability to integrate multiple functionalities within a small device. MEMS-based single-pixel imaging systems have mainly been explored in two research directions, namely the encoding-based approach and the scanning-based approach. The scanning method utilizes a variety of MEMS scanners to scan the target scenery and has potential applications in the biological imaging field. The encoding-based system typically employs MEMS modulators and a single-pixel detector to encode the light intensities of the scenery, and the images are constructed by harvesting the power of computational technology. This has the capability to capture non-visible images and 3D images. Thus, this review discusses the two approaches in detail, and their applications are also reviewed to evaluate the efficiency and advantages in various fields."

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The second part of the review starts with Samsung small-pixel paper "A 1/2.65inch 44Mpixel CMOS image sensor with 0.7 um pixels fabricated in advanced full-depth deep-trench isolation technology" by HyunChul Kim, Jongeun Park, Insung Joe, Doowon Kwon, Joo Hyoung Kim, Dongsuk Cho, Taehun Lee, Changkyu Lee, Haeyong Park, Soojin Hong, Chongkwang Chang, Jingyun Kim, Hanjin Lim, Youngsun Oh, Yitae Kim, Seungjoo Nah, Sangill Jung, Jaekyu Lee, JungChak Ahn, Hyeongsun Hong, Kyupil Lee, and Ho-Kyu Kang. The paper explains Bosch HART process used to create thin vertical DTI with large aspect ratio:


Artilux paper "An up-to-1400 nm 500MHz Demodulated time-of-flight image sensor on a Ge-on-Si platform" by C.-L. Chen, S.-W. Chu, B.-J. Chen, Y.-F. Lyu, K.-C. Hsu, C.-F. Liang, S.-S. Su, M.-J. Yang, C.-Y. Chen, S.-L. Cheng, H.-D. Liu, C.-T. Lin, K. P. Petrov, H.-W. Chen, K.-C. Chu, P.-C. Wu, P.-T. Huang, N. Na, and S.-L. Chen reports 50% QE at 1550nm for a Ge-on-Si stacked BSI sensor:

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Albert Theuwissen's review of ISSCC 2020 starts from Sony paper "A 132 dB single exposure dynamic range CMOS image sensor with high temperature tolerance" by Y. Sakano, T. Toyoshima, R. Nakamura, T. Asatsuma, Y. Hattori, T. Yamanaka, R. Yoshikawa, N. Kawazu, T. Matsuura, Iinuma, T. Toya, T. Watanabe, A. Suzuki, Y. Motohashi, J. Azami, Y. Tateshita, T. Haruta, and F. Brady.


Samsung paper “A 2.1 e temporal noise and -105 dB parasitic light sensitivity backside-illuminated 2.3 um pixel voltage domain global shutter CMOS image sensor using high-capacity DRAM capacitor technology” by Jae-kyu Lee, Seung Sik Kim, In-Gyu Baek, Heesung Shim, Taehoon Kim, Taehyoung Kim, Jungchan Kyoung, Dongmo Im, Jinyong Choi, KeunYeong Cho, Daehoon Kim, Haemin Lim, Min-Woong Seo, JuYoung Kim, Doowon Kwon, Jiyoun Song, Jiyoon Kim, Minho Jang, Joosung Moon, HyunChul Kim, Chong Kwang Chang, JinGyun Kim, Kyoungmin Koh, HanJin Lim, JungChak Ahn, Hyeongsun Hong, Kyupil Lee, Ho-Kyu Kang presents one of the industry smallest GS pixels.

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PRNewswire: trinamiX GmbH has joined the Qualcomm Software Accelerator Program to enable its patented technology for "live skin" detection for facial recognition on mobile devices. OEM customers will now be able to use the trinamiX proprietary "Beam Profile Analysis" technology, which extracts 3 data streams from a single camera system: a 2D IR image, a 3D depth map and most uniquely – material classification.

The material classification is accomplished through trinamiX proprietary algorithms that run on the Qualcomm Hexagon Processor on Snapdragon platforms. This ability to classify and identify materials based on their physical properties is a result of trinamiX research and development while operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of BASF.

"Using our patented 3D imaging technology, the solution will enable mobile devices powered by the Hexagon Processor inside Snapdragon mobile platforms to achieve a previously unattainable goal – the ability to sense live skin as part of a secure facial recognition," said Ingmar Bruder, Managing Director and founder of trinamiX.


Fastcompany publishes on the new trinamiX technology: "The Trinamix system combines a near-infrared spectroscopy 1-megapixel sensor with LED flood illumination and a light projector—both designed to be eye-safe—with proprietary beam analysis, to gauge the composition of the material the sensor is pointed at. Wood reflects back a different beam pattern than plastic, even if both have the identical shape and color. And because even slightly different materials reflect differently, the technology can tell the difference between skin with blood flowing under it and skin without."


The company's video demos the material recognition:

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Panasonic has developed a TOF image sensor that uses APD pixels and is capable of acquiring highly accurate 3D information at distances up to 250 m. The applications of the new sensor include automotive range imaging and wide-area surveillance.

The new sensor has 1MP resolution and depth accuracy of 10cm at the distances from 10m to 100m. This is an improvement over the previous generation Panasonic APD sensor announced in June 2018 that had an accuracy of 1.5m.

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Panasonic has developed a TOF image sensor that uses APD pixels and is capable of acquiring highly accurate 3D information at distances up to 250 m. The applications of the new sensor include automotive range imaging and wide-area surveillance.

The new sensor has 1MP resolution and depth accuracy of 10cm at the distances from 10m to 100m. This is an improvement over the previous generation Panasonic APD sensor announced in June 2018 that had an accuracy of 1.5m.

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PRNewswire: OmniVision announces a 2M image sensor OV02B manufactured using 12ʺ wafers, instead of the 8ʺ wafers that are in tight supply but are typically used for 2MP sensors. The OmniPixel3-HS pixel technology provides the OV02B with a 1.75um pixel pitch in a 1/5ʺ optical format.

"The strong growth trend in smartphone multicameras that we saw in 2019, for both main and front-facing cameras, is continuing to accelerate in 2020. In the entry level and mainstream markets, smartphone camera designers favor 2MP image sensors to produce bokeh effects, as they provide a significant cost advantage over higher resolution sensors," said Parson Li, OmniVision's senior mobile product marketing manager. "While the demand for 2MP image sensors is growing, there is a shortage of the 8ʺ wafers used to produce them. Our new OV02B is built on 12ʺ wafers while maintaining a die size that is comparable to our existing 2MP sensors, offering an effective alternative for cost sensitive entry level and mainstream smartphones."

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Prophesee S.A. and Sony announce they have jointly developed a stacked Event-based vision sensor with the industry’s smallest 4.86μm pixel size and the industry’s highest 124dB (or more) HDR performance. This sensor combines of Sony’s stacked CMOS sensor process with Cu-Cu connections, with Prophesee’s Metavision Event-based vision technologies leading to fast pixel response, high temporal resolution and high throughput data readout. The newly developed sensor is suitable for various machine vision applications, such as detecting fast moving objects in a wide range of environments and conditions.

The 1/2-inch format sensor has 1280x720 resolution and uses 40nm logic process. The 124dB (or more) HDR performance is made possible by placing only BSI pixels and a part of N-type MOS transistor on the pixel chip (top), thereby allowing the aperture ratio to be enhanced by up to 77%. High sensitivity/low noise technologies Sony has developed over many years of CMOS image sensor development enable event detection in low-light conditions (40mlx).

By adding time information at 1μs precision to the pixel address where a change in luminance has occurred, event data readout with high time resolution is ensured. Furthermore, a high output event rate of 1.066Geps*5 has been achieved by efficiently compressing the event data, i.e. luminance change polarity, time, and x/y coordinate information for each event.

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SeekingAlpha transcript of TowerJazz Q4 2019 earnings call updates on the foundry's image sensor business:

"Moving to our Sensors Business unit, despite in organic revenue decline of about 20% in the industrial sensor market, predominantly a consequence of the trade war, we were able to compensate to great extent, to have a decrease of 4% year-over-year organic revenues. The set compensation was via the growth of our X-ray medical sensors market and our high-end visible camera market. This growth should continue in 2020 and with an expected recovery and industrial sensor market, we target a double-digit organic growth in this business in 2020.

2019 was an exciting year for our future both in state-of-the-art technology developments and in customer engagements. As announced, we have released our 300 millimeter back side illumination hybrid bonding stack way for technology with copper to copper electrical contacts, and a pitch smaller than 2.5 micron, the smallest in the world. This technology allows a connection of a BSI sensor to a CMOS logic and analog wafer at the pixel level. We won two major customers that are using this technology for the mobile time of flight market both for face recognition and front looking 3D application.

These products will grow into mass volume production in 2022. The same technology will be used with our existing customers for high end photography market both in high end DSLR and mirrorless cameras and in cinematography.

In addition, we engage with large optical fingerprint sensor providers on the development of under OLED and under LCD sensors utilizing our high performing CIS technologies and our 200 -millimeter fabs at the point when eight micron technology node. These products are expected to wrap in the second half of this year and to further grow to high volumes in 2021 and beyond."

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New China TV video shows how camera-equipped robots help in fighting with the coronavirus outbreak in China:

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