Archives for July 2020

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Nanophotonics publishes a paper "Visible to long-wave infrared chip-scale spectrometers based on photodetectors with tailored responsivities and multispectral filters" by Jasper J. Cadusch, Jiajun Meng, Benjamin J. Craig, Vivek Raj Shrestha, and Kenneth B. Crozier from University of Melbourne, Australia.

"Chip-scale microspectrometers, operational across the visible to long-wave infrared spectral region will enable many remote sensing spectroscopy applications in a variety of fields including consumer electronics, process control in manufacturing, as well as environmental and agricultural monitoring. The low weight and small device footprint of such spectrometers could allow for integration into handheld, unattended vehicles or wearable-electronics based systems. This review will focus on recent developments in nanophotonic microspectrometer designs, which fall into two design categories: (i) planar filter-arrays used in conjunction with visible or IR detector arrays and (ii) microspectrometers using filter-free detector designs with tailored responsivities, where spectral filtering and photocurrent generation occur within the same nanostructure."

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BrightWay Vision CEO Ofer David presents the company's gated vision technology and explains how it works:

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Counterpoint Research estimates that the sales volume of CIS for smartphones increased eightfold over the past decade, reaching more than 4.5b units in 2019. Senior Analyst Ethan Qi, notes, “Although the strong growth momentum is expected to soften amid the pandemic fallout, thanks to the irreversible trend towards multi-camera setups and the spreading adoption of 3D sensing systems, the smartphone CIS segment will likely still register high-single-digit shipment growth in 2020, hitting an all-time high of close to 5.0 billion units.”

According to the findings of Counterpoint’s Component Tracker, each smartphone shipped in 1Q20 packed more than 3.5 image sensors on average. The growth is primarily driven by the rising penetration of quad-camera designs in the high- to mid-end smartphones, which jumped to nearly 20% during the period.

Commenting on the importance of camera in smartphones, Research Director, Tom Kang, says, “As camera function has become a key differentiator in smartphones, we expect the quad-camera feature will become a standard moving forward. Leading smartphone brands will continue enriching and enhancing the photography and video capture experiences, as well as exploring AR applications, by leveraging diversified lens and sensor combinations along with the increasing AI computing power.”

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Paul Gallagher, VP of Strategic Marketing at Airy3D, talks about challenges and solutions in marketing of the company's 3D platform in "Episode 4: Depth Perception" of The Launch podcast.

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It's official now: Velodyne LiDAR becomes a public company through reverse merging with Graf Industrial.

"Graf Industrial Corp. (NYSE: GRAF). GRAF and Velodyne have successfully raised $150MM in equity from a group of institutional investors, subject to completion of the transaction. This transaction is being structured as a reverse merger where existing Velodyne shareholders will own the majority of the go-forward company. The funds raised will be combined with up to $117M that GRAF had already raised from its existing investors. We are targeting to finalize the combination toward the end of Q3 2020, following approval by GRAF’s shareholders. At that time, Velodyne will become a publicly-traded company and we expect to be listed on the NYSE under a new ticker symbol, VLDR."

Why should it be interesting for everybody? Because Velodyne becomes the first pure-play LiDAR company that would disclose its financial results every quarter. Now, everybody can see how LiDAR business looks from inside and dynamics of the LiDAR market. The first public disclosure is below:

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ResearchGate publishes a paper "Design and Optical Simulation of a Sensor Pixel for an Optical Readout-Based Thermal Imager" by Ambali Odebowale and Mohamed Ramy Abdelrahman from King Saud University.

"In this paper, we present an optical design and analysis of a single pixel element detector in an optical readout-based infrared imaging system. The proposed thermal imaging system contains no readout integrated circuitry and thus can be considered as a low cost alternative to typical thermal imaging systems. In this paper, we present the design and optical simulation details for a fabry perot cavity filter (FPCF)-based sensor configuration operating in the transmission mode at 650nm and as a Long Wave Infrared (LWIR) absorber in the 8000nm-12000nm band. The temperature tuning of the FPCF resonant frequency is dependent on the thermo-optic sensitivity of its cavity layer. The performance of the FPCF sensor is considered at different cavity layer thermo-optic coefficients (TOCs) and for different thermal scene temperature variations. The proposed sensor was found to be sensitive to 25mK thermal scene temperature variations."

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MDPI paper "Up-Conversion Sensing of 2D Spatially-Modulated Infrared Information-Carrying Beams with Si-Based Cameras" by Adrián J. Torregrosa, Emir Karamehmedović, Haroldo Maestre, María Luisa Rico, and Juan Capmany from Universidad Miguel Hernández, Spain, Universidad de Alicante, Spain, and International University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina proposes 1550nm imaging with Si-based sensor:

"Up-conversion sensing based on optical heterodyning of an IR (infrared) image with a local oscillator laser wave in a nonlinear optical sum-frequency mixing (SFM) process is a practical solution to circumvent some limitations of IR image sensors in terms of signal-to-noise ratio, speed, resolution, or cooling needs in some demanding applications. In this way, the spectral content of an IR image can become spectrally shifted to the visible/near infrared (VIS/NWIR) and then detected with silicon focal plane arrayed sensors (Si-FPA), such as CCD/CMOS (charge-coupled and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor devices). This work is an extension of a previous study where we recently introduced this technique in the context of optical communications, in particular in FSOC (free-space optical communications). Herein, we present an image up-conversion system based on a 1064 nm Nd3+ : YVO4 solid-state laser with a KTP (potassium titanyl phosphate) nonlinear crystal located intra-cavity where a laser beam at 1550 nm 2D spatially-modulated with a binary Quick Response (QR) code is mixed, giving an up-converted code image at 631 nm that is detected with an Si-based camera. The underlying technology allows for the extension of other IR spectral allocations, construction of compact receivers at low cost, and provides a natural way for increased protection against eavesdropping."


"The system can be miniaturized down to a quasi-monolithic robust architecture around 4 cm3 and built at a low cost with standard commercial components, resulting lightweight, and favoring field-deployable IR eye-safe links, although it is easily extensible to the MWIR and LWIR spectral regions."

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MDPI paper "Up-Conversion Sensing of 2D Spatially-Modulated Infrared Information-Carrying Beams with Si-Based Cameras" by Adrián J. Torregrosa, Emir Karamehmedović, Haroldo Maestre, María Luisa Rico, and Juan Capmany from Universidad Miguel Hernández, Spain, Universidad de Alicante, Spain, and International University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina proposes 1550nm imaging with Si-based sensor:

"Up-conversion sensing based on optical heterodyning of an IR (infrared) image with a local oscillator laser wave in a nonlinear optical sum-frequency mixing (SFM) process is a practical solution to circumvent some limitations of IR image sensors in terms of signal-to-noise ratio, speed, resolution, or cooling needs in some demanding applications. In this way, the spectral content of an IR image can become spectrally shifted to the visible/near infrared (VIS/NWIR) and then detected with silicon focal plane arrayed sensors (Si-FPA), such as CCD/CMOS (charge-coupled and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor devices). This work is an extension of a previous study where we recently introduced this technique in the context of optical communications, in particular in FSOC (free-space optical communications). Herein, we present an image up-conversion system based on a 1064 nm Nd3+ : YVO4 solid-state laser with a KTP (potassium titanyl phosphate) nonlinear crystal located intra-cavity where a laser beam at 1550 nm 2D spatially-modulated with a binary Quick Response (QR) code is mixed, giving an up-converted code image at 631 nm that is detected with an Si-based camera. The underlying technology allows for the extension of other IR spectral allocations, construction of compact receivers at low cost, and provides a natural way for increased protection against eavesdropping."


"The system can be miniaturized down to a quasi-monolithic robust architecture around 4 cm3 and built at a low cost with standard commercial components, resulting lightweight, and favoring field-deployable IR eye-safe links, although it is easily extensible to the MWIR and LWIR spectral regions."

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i-Micronews: "The Covid-19 pandemic has induced a gold rush in the thermal imaging and sensing industry. All over the world, various media outlets, smaller or larger – even media behemoths – have written pieces about this technology.

We thought that it wouldn’t be too outrageous for people to measure their body temperature frequently using a smartphone that happens to be constantly in their hands. At other times, this would sound like a niche smartphone feature. But in the new era during and after the pandemic, it could prove as a helpful tool to have.

Therefore, at the beginning of June 2020, Huawei subsidiary Honor announced the Honor Play 4 smartphone, which integrates an infrared temperature sensor. According to Honor, the infra-red (IR) detector has a measurement range of -20°C to 100°C, which is more than enough to cover the human body’s range of potential temperatures. It promises an accuracy of 0.2°C, considered to be well within fever detection requirements. This looks like a medical-grade sensor. From the photo shown here in Figure 2, we believe that there is a possibility that the detector might be the newest Melexis thermopile sensor MLX90632. The specifications also fit with the product sheet. Or at least, it could be a sensor from another manufacturer that has very similar specs with the Melexis one.

The question however, remains: Is consumerization of thermal imaging/sensing technology imminent? We would dare to answer yes, but only when it’s a simple sensing function, if only temperature is read, for example from the forehead, using a cheap, robust and qualified IR detector. Thermopile technology could work just fine. This wouldn’t differ much from usual forehead thermometers. It’s just that the measurement guidelines are slightly changed by using a smartphone. On the other hand, thermal imaging would take some time. It’s a matter of educating properly consumers on how to interpret and read a thermal image. People might not be ready yet, and costs for this technology to reach the masses for daily use might still be high. Nevertheless, thermal imaging and sensing technology can surely continue to be, among others, one line of defense against Covid-19, regardless of implementation."

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SystemPlus Consulting publishes "Smartphone 3D Sensing Modules Comparison 2020."

"The consumer 3D sensing module market is expected to reach $8.1B in 2025 from $2B in 2019, according to the “3D Imaging & Sensing 2020” report from Yole Développement. The main driver technologies are Time-of-Flight (ToF) for photography enhancement and Structured Light (SL) for facial recognition. From 2016 to 2019, a total of 22 smartphones integrating a 3D sensing module have been released, 13 with SL and 9 with ToF.

In this dynamic context, System Plus Consulting provides a deep comparative review of technology and cost of 11 3D sensing modules found in flagship smartphones, with a focus on Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) and Near Infra-Red CMOS Image Sensors (NIR CIS)."

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Qualcomm announces Snapdragon Wear 4100 smartwatch platform that features dual ISP with support of 16MP camera with 1080p30 video:

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