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China seems to become an image sensor land: 3 out of 10 largest semiconductor companies are designing image sensors, while SMIC, the 4th company, manufactures them:

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IC Insights is disappointed by the slow CMOS sensor market growth this year:

"The total optoelectronics market is expected to be held back by sales growth of just 7% in CMOS image sensors this year.  CMOS image sensor leader Sony blames softer growth conditions in 2021 on trade frictions between the U.S. and China and a “deterioration of product mix.”  CMOS image sensor sales have also been impacted by market fluctuations in some end-use applications, and shortages of ICs and other components used in digital-imaging systems."

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Only 4 days remain for free download of Now Publishers book "Welcome to the World of Single-Slope Column-Level Analog-to-Digital Converters for CMOS Image Sensors" by Albert Theuwissen and Guy Meynants.

Complimentary downloads of this book will be available till 1st of November 2021. After that date, you can receive the alert member discount price of $40 (includes non-trackable shipping) by quoting the Promotion Code: 137791. Please note that the discount price applies only to purchases of print copies by individuals paying in advance by credit card. The discounted price will not be honored for institutions or booksellers.

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36kr.com, EET-China (Google automatic translation): Chinese startup Beijing Ruisi Zhixin Technology (English name AlpsenTek) presents hybrid vision sensors combining event-driven sensor and regular frame-based one in a single pixel array:

"The ALPIX-Pilatus (ALPIX-P for short) released by Ruisizhixin this time is developed based on "Hybrid Vision" and is the world's first chip that integrates traditional image sensor technology and bionic event camera technology in the same pixel . ALPIX-P can quickly switch between the traditional image sensor mode and the bionic event camera mode. In image mode, ALPIX-P is a global exposure sensor with a maximum frame rate of 120 frames, which is completely consistent with existing traditional image sensors and is fully compatible with existing mature vision systems. In the bionic event camera mode, ALPIX-P has the characteristics of ultra-high frame rate, high effective information ratio, and large dynamic range.

At present, the chip has begun to send samples. It also verified that the "Hybrid Vision" technology is feasible in mass production, cost, and performance .

Based on the design of ALPIX-P, Ruisi Zhixin has developed two ALPIX series sensor chip products, namely ALPIX-Titlis (abbreviated as ALPIX-T) fused low-power bionic vision sensor and ALPIX-Eiger (abbreviated as ALPIX-E). ) Fusion high-end bionic vision sensor.

The team has thoroughly studied the technical route of the bionic event visual sensor. In addition, the core founders all graduated from Cambridge University, ETH Zurich, Zhejiang University and other prestigious universities, and have many years of working experience in NXP, ARM, Freescale, Intel, Magic Leap and other companies. At the beginning of the establishment, the core team members were only about 6 people. Now the team has expanded to 50 people, of which R&D personnel accounted for 85% .

Recalling the financing history of RISZ, the company has now completed two rounds of financing. At the end of 2019, the company completed an angel round of financing of tens of millions of RMB. The investors were Zhongke Chuangxing and Lenovo Venture Capital . At the end of 2020, Ruisi Zhixin completed a Pre-A round of financing of nearly 100 million yuan, which was jointly led by Hikvision and Yaotu Capital."

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Iaria publishes two Laurent Fesquet's (University Grenoble Alpes) presentations on event-driven sensors: 2016 "Low-Power Event-driven Image Sensor Architectures" by Laurent Fesquet, Amani Darwish, Gilles Sicard and 2018 "Sensing and Sampling for Low-Power Applications" by Laurent Fesquet alone. Few slides are given below:

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Revenue has grown by leaps and bounds, but compared with peers, the scale is still small, and the gross profit margin is lower than the peer average.

Smartsens products are used in many high-tech applications such as security monitoring, machine vision, and intelligent vehicle electronics. From 2018 to 2020 and from January to March 2021, the company's operating income was 325 million yuan, 678 million yuan, 1.527 billion yuan and 541 million yuan, respectively, with a year-on-year increase of 92% and 124.89% in 2019 and 2020; net profits were 166 million yuan, 242 million yuan, 121 million yuan and 69 million yuan, respectively, with a total loss of 408 million yuan in 2018 and 2019 Yuan, starting to turn losses into profits in 2020.

From 2018 to 2020 and from January to March 2021, the company's FSI series sales were 56 million units, 86 million units, 139 million units, and 49 million units, with revenues of 284 million yuan, 480 million yuan, 880 million yuan and 288 million yuan, accounting for 87.45%, 70.61%, 57.66% and 53.3% of revenue, respectively, and their proportions continued to decline. ; The company’s sales of BSI-RS products were 2.0483 million, 9.243,900, 27,624,400, and 11.11 million, respectively, with revenues of 0.36 billion yuan, 149 million yuan, 473 million yuan and 157 million yuan, the proportion of revenue increased from 10.99% in 2018 to 30.97% in 2020.

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EPIC Technology Meeting on Low Light Cameras Technology and Applications features Valeo, Ibeo, Leica, and Thales presentations. Few slides are below:

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“While InGaAs SWIR cameras are generally constrained to 640×512 or 1280×1024 pixel formats, our pioneering CQD sensor technology enables 2.1 megapixel, full-HD resolution, the first commercially available SWIR product of its kind.”

The new eSWIR version of the product family operates across an extended wavelength range, between 350 nm and 2000 nm, with a pixel pitch of 15 µm. 

The company's Vimeo video compares regular RGB imaging with SWIR in foggy environment.

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Terabee publishes a few webinars on ToF technology basics and applications:

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TI presentation "V3Link Industrial SerDes" unveils the company's approach to compete with MIPI A-PHY and Auto-Serdes standards:

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AAA: New research from AAA finds that moderate to heavy rain affects a vehicle safety system’s ability to “see”, which may result in performance issues. During closed course testing, AAA simulated rainfall and found that test vehicles equipped with automatic emergency braking traveling at 35 mph collided with a stopped vehicle one third (33%) of the time. Lane keeping assistance didn’t fare any better with test vehicles departing their lane 69% of the time. Vehicle safety systems, also known as advanced driver assistance systems or ADAS, are typically evaluated in ideal operating conditions. However, AAA believes testing standards must incorporate real-world conditions that drivers normally encounter.

“Vehicle safety systems rely on sensors and cameras to see road markings, other cars, pedestrians and roadway obstacles. So naturally, they are more vulnerable to environmental factors like rain,” said Greg Brannon, AAA’s director of automotive engineering and industry relations. “The reality is people aren’t always driving around in perfect, sunny weather so we must expand testing and take into consideration things people actually contend with in their day-to-day driving.”

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3D Backside-Illuminated SPAD Imager Sensors: Unlike the CMOS image sensors found in smartphones, which measure the amount of light reaching a sensor’s pixels in a given timeframe, single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) image sensors detect each photon that reaches the pixel. Each photon is converted into an electric charge, and the electrons that result are eventually multiplied in avalanche fashion until they form an output signal. SPAD image sensors hold great promise for high-performance, low-light imaging applications, for depth sensing, and for fully digital system architectures.

However, until now their performance has been limited by tradeoffs in pixel detection efficiency vs. pixel size, and by poor signal-to-noise ratios. Recently a charge-focusing approach was proposed to overcome these issues, but until now it remained to be implemented. In a late-news paper, Canon researchers will discuss how they did so, with the industry’s first 3D-stacked backside-illuminated (BSI) charge-focusing SPADs. The devices featured the largest array size ever reported for a SPAD image sensor (3.2 megapixels) and demonstrated a photon detection efficiency of 24.4%, and timing jitter below 100ps at 940 nm.

From the images below:

(a) is a full-resolution color intensity image captured by the 3.2megapixel SPAD image sensor at a high light level.

(b) is a monochrome intensity image captured by the device under a scene illumination of 2mlux (without post-processing)

(c) is a monochrome intensity image captured by the device under a scene illumination of 0.3mlux (without post-processing)

a full-resolution color intensity image captured by the 3.2megapixel SPAD image sensor at a high light level.

a monochrome intensity image captured  by the device under a scene illumination  of 2mlux (without post-processing)

a monochrome intensity image captured by the device under a scene illumination  of 0.3mlux (without post-processing)

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 ST reports at its Facebook page:

"ST’s Francois Roy succeeds in solid-state image sensors

The International Image Sensor Society recently gave François Roy the Walter Kosonocky Award for his paper entitled Fully Depleted Trench-Pinned Photo Gate for CMOS Image Sensor Applications. The Photo Gate pixel concept improves image quality and the manufacturing process.

‘’It is a great honor for ST, the ST Imaging teams, my PhD students and myself to receive this prestigious award and I thank them all,’’ said François.

At ST we are proud of our inventors. We nurture strong competences and encourage our distinguished senior experts to coach young engineers."

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IEDM 2021 presents many image sensor papers in its program:

• 20-1 A Back Illuminated 6 μm SPAD Pixel Array with High PDE and Timing Jitter Performance,
  S. Shimada, Y. Otake, S. Yoshida, S. Endo, R. Nakamura, H. Tsugawa, T. Ogita, T. Ogasahara, K. Yokochi, Y. Inoue, K. Takabayashi, H. Maeda, K. Yamamoto, M. Ono, S. Matsumoto, H. Hiyama, and T. Wakano.
  Sony
  This paper presents a 6μm pitch silicon SPAD pixel array using 3D-stacked technology. A PDE of 20.2% and timing jitter FWHM of 137ps at λ=940nm with 3V excess bias were achieved. These state-of-the-art performances were allowed via the implementation of a pyramid surface structure and pixel potential profile optimization.
• 30-1 Highly Efficient Color Separation and Focusing in the Sub-micron CMOS Image Sensor,
  S. Yun, S. Roh, S. Lee, H. Park, M. Lim, S. Ahn, and H. Choo.
  Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology
  We report nanoscale metaphotonic color-routing (MPCR) structure that can significantly improve the lowlight performance of a sub-micron CMOS image sensor. Fabricated on the Samsung's commercial 0.8μm pixel sensor, MPCR structures confirms increased quantum efficiency (+20%), a luminance SNR improvement (+1.22 dB@5lux), a comparably low color error and great angular tolerant response.
• 20-2 3.2 Megapixel 3D-Stacked Charge Focusing SPAD for Low-Light Imaging and Depth Sensing (Late News),
  K. Morimoto, J. Iwata, M. Shinohara, H. Sekine, A. Abdelghafar, H. Tsuchiya, Y. Kuroda, K. Tojima, W. Endo, Y. Maehashi, Y. Ota, T. Sasago, S. Maekawa, S. Hikosaka, T. Kanou, A. Kato, T. Tezuka, S. Yoshizaki, T. Ogawa, K. Uehira, A. Ehara, F. Inui, Y. Matsuno, K. Sakurai, T. Ichikawa.
  Canon Inc.
  We present a new generation of scalable photon counting image sensors for low-light imaging and depthsensing, featuring read-noise-free operation. Newly proposed charge focusing SPAD is employed to a prototype 3.2 megapixel 3D backside-illuminated image sensor, demonstrating the best-in-class pixel performance with the largest array size in APD-based image sensors.
• 23-4 1.62µm Global Shutter Quantum Dot Image Sensor Optimized for Near and Shortwave Infrared,
  J. S. Steckel, E. Josse, A. G. Pattantyus-Abraham, M. Bidaud, B. Mortini, H. Bilgen, O. Arnaud, S. Allegret-Maret, F. Saguin, L. Mazet, S. Lhostis, T. Berger, K. Haxaire, L. L. Chapelon, L. Parmigiani, P. Gouraud, M. Brihoum, P. Bar, M. Guillermet, S. Favreau, R. Duru, J. Fantuz, S. Ricq, D. Ney, I. Hammad, D. Roy, A. Arnaud , B. Vianne, G. Nayak, N. Virollet, V. Farys, P. Malinge, A. Tournier, F. Lalanne, A. Crocherie, J. Galvier, S. Rabary, O. Noblanc, H. Wehbe-Alause , S. Acharya, A. Singh, J. Meitzner, D. Aher, H. Yang, J. Romero, B. Chen, C.Hsu, K. C. Cheng, Y. Chang, M. Sarmiento, C. Grange, E. Mazaleyrat, K. Rochereau,
  STMicroelectronics
  We have developed a 1.62µm pixel pitch global shutter sensor optimized for imaging in the NIR and SWIR. This breakthrough was made possible through the use of our colloidal quantum Dot thin film technology. We have scaled up this new platform technology to our 300mm manufacturing toolset.
• 30-2 Automotive 8.3 MP CMOS Image Sensor with 150 dB Dynamic Range and Light Flicker Mitigation (Invited),
  M. Innocent, S. Velichko, D. Lloyd, J. Beck, A. Hernandez, B. Vanhoff, C. Silsby, A. Oberoi, G. Singh, S. Gurindagunta, R. Mahadevappa, M. Suryadevara, M. Rahman, and V. Korobov,
  ON Semiconductor
  New 8.3 MP image sensor for automotive applications has 2.1 µm pixel with overflow and triple gain readout. In comparison to earlier 3 µm pixel, flicker free range increased to 110 dB and total range to 150dB. SNR in transitions stays above 25 dB up to 125°C.
• 30-3 A 2.9μm Pixel CMOS Image Sensor for Security Cameras with high FWC and 97 dB Single Exposure Dynamic Range,
  T. Uchida, K. Yamashita, A. Masagaki, T. Kawamura, C. Tokumitsu, S. Iwabuchi,. Onizawa, M. Ohura, H. Ansai, K. Izukashi, S. Yoshida, T. Tanikuni, S. Hiyama, H. Hirano, S. Miyazawa, Y. Tateshita,
  Sony
  We developed a new photodiode structure for CMOS image sensors with a pixel size of 2.9μm. It adds the following two structures: one forms a strong electric field P/N junction on the full-depth deep-trench isolation side wall, and the other is a dual-vertical-gate structure.
• 30-4 3D Sequential Process Integration for CMOS Image Sensor,
  K. Nakazawa, J. Yamamoto, S. Mori, S. Okamoto, A. Shimizu, K. Baba, N. Fujii, M. Uehara, K. Hiramatsu, H. Kumano, A. Matsumoto, K. Zaitsu, H. Ohnuma, K. Tatani, T. Hirano, and H. Iwamoto,
  Sony
  We developed a new structure of pixel transistors stacked over photodiode fabricated by 3D sequential process integration. With this technology, we successfully increased AMP size and demonstrated backsideilluminated CMOS image sensor of 6752 x 4928 pixels at 0.7um pitch to prove its functionality and integrity.
• 35-3 Computational Imaging with Vision Sensors embedding In-pixel Processing (Invited),
  J.N.P. Martel, G. Wetzstein,
  Stanford University
  Emerging vision sensors embedding in-pixel processing capabilities enable new ways to capture visual information. We review some of our work in designing new systems and algorithms using such vision sensors with applications in video-compressive imaging, high-dynamic range imaging, high-speed tracking, hyperspectral or light-field imaging.

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