Archives for August 2020

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A Youtube video explains seemingly impossible effects described in EPFL and Canon Archive.org paper published a few weeks ago:

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SeekingAlpha publishes Sony earnings call transcript with some updates on image sensor business:

"Next is in IS&S, Image Sensing & Solutions. Fiscal '20 quarter one sales decreased 11% year-on-year to ¥206.2 billion, and operating income decreased ¥24.1 billion to ¥25.4 billion.

Fiscal '20 sales are expected to decrease 7% to ¥1 trillion, and operating income is expected to decrease ¥105.6 billion to ¥130 billion. Now I will explain the state of our sensor business. Fiscal '20 sales of image sensors for mobile products are expected to decrease compared to fiscal '19, primarily due to a decrease in end-user product sales by one of our major customers, the deceleration of the smartphone market and a shift to mid-range and moderately priced models in that market resulting from the impact of the spread of COVID-19 and significant reduction in component and finished goods inventory by Chinese customer. Profitability is expected to be impacted by a decrease in gross margins and an increase in depreciation and manufacturing-related costs associated with production equipment we purchased in the previous fiscal year when we expected growth as well as higher research and development costs.

We do not expect to grow sales of mobile sensing products compared to fiscal '19 because adoption by smartphone makers has been slow and sales of flagship models, which already use our products have decreased due to the shift in market conditions. Sales of image sensors to AV have also decreased due to the contraction of the sensor market for digital cameras, resulting from the impact of the spread of COVID-19. We expect the market to contract in 1 year as much as we had previously expected it would contract over the next approximately 3 years.

In order to respond quickly to the changes in the environment, especially for image sensors for mobile products, we will modify our strategy, mainly in the areas of investment, research and development and customer base. We have already significantly reduced investment in capacity to supply demand in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022, because we can supply that demand by stockpiling strategic inventory through utilization of our excess production capacity this fiscal year.

The forecast for cumulative capital expenditures for the 3 fiscal years began April 1, 2018, which we explained in the past, has been reduced ¥50 billion from approximately ¥700 billion to approximately ¥650 billion. And we are carefully reviewing the timing of planned capital expenditures in fiscal '21 and beyond. We will review the projects and priorities for research and development spending as well to ensure that they fit with the recent trends in the smartphone market and changes in our major customers' needs. However, in order to maintain and increase our future technological competitive advantage, we will not drastically reduce the number of projects or the budget. We intend to more proactively expand and diversify our customer base, which we're cautious to do previously due to production capacity constraints.

Over the mid- to long term, we will work to expand the applications for image sensors and the market overall by introducing edge-sensing products that use senses equipped with AI processing functionality, and we will steadfastly work to grow this business. We plan to complete within approximately 1 year an enhancement of our business model to adapt to the recent changes in the environment, and we expect to return the business to the path of profit growth from the second half of fiscal '21.

....About sensors, changes in the market and how are the changes occurring. For one thing, all over the world, there is poor sense in the market, deterioration of the market, and that is impacting the sensor sales. And also, the higher-priced products, well, it's, you could say, shifting to the moderate -- more moderate-priced models overall. So for our image sensors, especially the high-end image sensors that we sell, the high-end models are decreasing in sales. So that's impacting our business.

But as far as a large trend is concerned, the phones -- smartphones going larger and using multiple lenses, that will continue. The performance of -- for the cameras required for smartphones, for video and the camera photos, the demand for the higher quality will continue. Therefore, we believe the demand should come back sometime in the future.

...regarding image sensor, the capacity and the capacity factor and the second quarter. So the capacity for this quarter, for fiscal 2020 at the end of first quarter, and that's -- that's 133,000 per month at the master price; and also at the end of second -- of the second quarter, 135,000 per month. So we will gradually increase the capacity. That's our plan.

And also, the number of wafers to be input. The first quarter the actual figure is -- the average of 3 months is 126,000 for mobile and also for digital camera, and there were some adjustments made for production. And also for the projection for second quarter for that, the simple average for 3 months is 112,000. So for mobile and digital camera, I think there's going to be more production adjustment.

And then, well, for Sensing segment, the sales is expected to come down, and what is the magnitude of the impact? Well, last year, actual was a little over of ¥230 billion and it's a strong ¥230 billion. So generally, it's like 1/3 of that is the reduction in sensors or sensing products. That's 1/3. So a big point about that is that as of last year, we thought that the growth can be expected. So we made the capital investment and also, we have increased our R&D expenditures. And that has been the impact."

In a separate news, a Twitter post presents CIS market share chart from an unidentified Korean source. It shows a Q2 2020 market share taken away by somebody from both Sony and Samsung:

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Sony reports a drop of image sensor sales in its last fiscal quarter started on April 1, 2020:

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Sony presents a number of use cases for its REA-C1000 Edge Analytics Appliance - a separate box for now. Possibly, Sony intends to integrate some of its functionality onto the AI-enabled image sensors in the future. The power consumption of the Edge Analytics Appliance box is 40W.

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BusinessWire: Renesas introduced an UHD surveillance camera reference design to address today’s high-accuracy object detection and recognition needs for video security and surveillance systems. Developed in collaboration with Novatek Microelectronics and designed by Systemtec Corporation Ltd, the reference design includes a camera image sensor board with PDAF, and a ISP board along with auto focus zoom lens software.

Built around Renesas’ RAA462113FYL CMOS sensor and Novatek’s dual core SoC ISP, the surveillance camera reference design uses several other Renesas ICs that address its signal chain electrical functions. The CIS board includes the RAA462113FYL, DC/DC buck converters, LDOs, motor driver and lens. The ISP board features the SoC and associated signal chain components.

“An ever-increasing demand for security and surveillance camera systems drives the need for better object detection and recognition capabilities with higher imaging accuracy,” said DK Singh, Director, Systems and Solutions Team at Renesas. “Our surveillance camera with 4K resolution and PDAF function can deliver much faster autofocus results compared with conventional contrast-detection autofocus. We are excited that our close collaboration with Novatek and Systemtec makes this surveillance system reference design more accessible for customers worldwide.”

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ASM Q2 2020 investor presentation reports weaker booking for CIS packaging and shows its camera module assembly solutions:

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According to IBK Securities report, Galaxycore becomes the world's #3 in CIS units market share (left chart below). However, Omnivision still keeps #3 spot in terms of revenue (right chart).


i-Micronews: GalaxyCore files for IPO on Shanghai’s Science and Technology Innovation Board (Star Stock Market) worth as much as CNY 6.96 billion (USD 991.62 million). According to Frost&Sullivan, in 2019, the company shipped 1.31 billion image sensors, occupying a 20.7% volume market share globally. In terms of revenue, it ranked eighth with CNY 3.19 billion.

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AIP Applied Physics Reviews publishes National University of Singapore paper "Black phosphorus photonics toward on-chip applications" by Li Huang and Kah-Wee Ang.

"Unceasing efforts have been devoted to photonics based on black phosphorus ever since it came under the spotlight of two-dimensional materials research six years ago. The direct bandgap of black phosphorus is tunable by layer number, vertical electric field, and chemical doping, covering a broad spectrum for efficient light manipulation. The optical anisotropy further enables the identification and control of light polarization. Along with high carrier mobility, nonlinear optical properties, and integration capability due to its layered lattice structure, black phosphorus manifests itself as a promising multipurpose material for chip-scale optoelectronics. In this manuscript, we review the research on black phosphorus photonics, with a focus on the most fundamental active functions in photonic circuits: photodetection, electro-optic modulation, light emission, and laser pulse generation, aiming at evaluating the feasibility of integrating these black phosphorus-based components as a compact system for on-chip applications."

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ID Quantique (IDQ) announces that its image sensor based Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) chip has been integrated in the Vietnamese ‘Vsmart Aris 5G’ smartphone.

“With its compact size and low power consumption, our latest Quantis QRNG chip can be embedded in a smartphone to ensure trusted authentication and encryption of sensitive information. It brings a new level of security to the mobile phone industry. This is truly the first mass market application of quantum technologies,” says Grégoire Ribordy, CEO and co-founder of ID Quantique.

“Implementing ID Quantique QRNG in the Aris 5G smartphone is part of getting VinSmart customers access to the most advanced technology in the world. This breakthrough in terms of quantum enhanced security technology offers benefits for services including banking, medical data and personal information. In the near future, Vinsmart will continue to research and perfect the next-generation of its 5G offering to accelerate the universalization of this technology in VietNam,” says Tran Minh Trung, Deputy CEO of VinSmart.


IDQ opens a dedicated web page "Quantum Random Number Generation (QRNG) for mobile phones."

"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 that can be accessed directly by the user applications. These numbers are also fed to a deterministic random bit generator algorithm (DRBG) which distills further the entropy of quantum origin to produce random bits in compliancy to NIST 800-90A/B/C standard.

The Quantis QRNG Chip allows live status verification: if a failure is detected in the physical process, the random bit stream is immediately disabled, the user is notified, and an automatic recovery procedure is performed to produce QRNG data again."

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Phys.org, OSA Optica: University of Glasgow, TU Delft, and Politecnico di Milano publishe a paper "Spatial images from temporal data" by Alex Turpin, Gabriella Musarra, Valentin Kapitany, Francesco Tonolini, Ashley Lyons, Ilya Starshynov, Federica Villa, Enrico Conca, Francesco Fioranelli, Roderick Murray-Smith, and Daniele Faccio.

"Traditional paradigms for imaging rely on the use of a spatial structure, either in the detector (pixels arrays) or in the illumination (patterned light). Removal of the spatial structure in the detector or illumination, i.e., imaging with just a single-point sensor, would require solving a very strongly ill-posed inverse retrieval problem that to date has not been solved. Here, we demonstrate a data-driven approach in which full 3D information is obtained with just a single-point, single-photon avalanche diode that records the arrival time of photons reflected from a scene that is illuminated with short pulses of light. Imaging with single-point time-of-flight (temporal) data opens new routes in terms of speed, size, and functionality. As an example, we show how the training based on an optical time-of-flight camera enables a compact radio-frequency impulse radio detection and ranging transceiver to provide 3D images."

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