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Sony Seed Acceleration Program, which seeks to fast-track promising new business ideas proposed by Sony employees into full-fledged businesses, unveils "First Flight." First Flight is a new online platform providing an suite of services from crowdfunding to e-commerce in Japan. Kazuo Hirai, Sony President and CEO, says: "Sony's innovation is ingrained in the company's founding spirit of `doing what has never been done before.' Nothing embodies this spirit more than passionate entrepreneurs who give shape to their ground-breaking ideas and introduce them to the world, without fear of failure. The First Flight platform and other Seed Acceleration Program initiatives accelerate and optimize this process. Sony itself originated as a start-up, and through the Seed Acceleration Program we are challenging ourselves to return to our entrepreneurial roots. At Sony we will continue to explore ways of delivering new, emotionally compelling experiences and enhanced customer value."

The fist three projects on the new site are not related to imaging. I wonder if we ever see image sensor crowdfunding projects proposed by Sony employees from image sensor division.

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Toshiba publishes a nice Youtube video explaining how PDAF works:

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GlobeNewsWire: Ambarella acquires VisLab S.r.l., a privately held Italian company based in Parma, Italy for $30M in cash. VisLab, the Vision and Intelligent Systems Laboratory at the University of Parma, develops perception systems for autonomous vehicles and was founded by Prof. Alberto Broggi. The company has developed computer vision and intelligent control systems for automotive and other commercial applications, including ADAS and several generations of autonomous vehicle driving systems. These include "Porter," an autonomous vehicle that made a 13,000 km autonomous trip from Italy to China in 2010.

"Computer vision is an area of significant focus for Ambarella, and will be critical to our current video markets, as well as future markets such as automotive OEM cameras," said Fermi Wang, CEO of Ambarella. "We are delighted to welcome Dr. Broggi and the VisLab team to Ambarella to jointly define, develop and deploy future generations of computer vision solutions."

"The unique combination of VisLab's computer vision expertise and Ambarella's high performance, power-efficient video processing technology will enable extremely powerful systems," said Broggi. "We are very pleased to join Ambarella and to realize the full potential of our research and algorithms across a wide range of customers' products."

VisLab's 27 researchers will join Ambarella's advanced computer vision development team, working computer vision for future solutions targeting Ambarella's core markets including automotive, IP security, wearable, and flying cameras.

A Youtube video shows Vislab's driverless car test:



Here is Vislab's hardware inside the driverless car:

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TI publishes fairly detailed datasheets of Softkinetic QVGA OPT8241 ToF sensor and OPT9221 controller chip.


Correction: I have been told that the "chips are based on Softkinetic pixel technology. The chips are made in TI and most of the tech in them belongs to TI."

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Videantis published a nice review of Image Sensors Auto conference taken place in Brussels, Belgium last week. Few quotes:

"Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving are huge topics.

When exactly you can buy the first car and use it to go where you want to go is unclear. According to IAV’s talk, Audi plans on 2017, Google 2018, Nissan 2020, Intel 2022, Tesla 2023, and Continental and Daimler say it’ll be in 2025. An IEEE committee has predicted that in 2040 75% of cars on the road will be autonomous.

Volvo said their future cars would have 10 cameras. Already, their current prototype vehicle includes 4 surround cameras, 3 forward-looking cameras, and a driver-monitoring camera."

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CTimes: Powerchip has signed a cooperation agreement with China Anhui Hefei government, to set up a joint venture “Hefei Jinghe”, a 12-inch fab located in Hefei with monthly production capacity of 40,000 wafers, with total investment of 13.53 billion yuan. The new joint venture will have 0.15um, 0.11um and 90nm processes, and will manufacture image sensors, among other things.

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CTimes: Powerchip has signed a cooperation agreement with China Anhui Hefei government, to set up a joint venture “Hefei Jinghe”, a 12-inch fab located in Hefei with monthly production capacity of 40,000 wafers, with total investment of 13.53 billion yuan. The new joint venture will have 0.15um, 0.11um and 90nm processes, and will manufacture image sensors, among other things.

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ESPROS epc660 BSI ToF sensor is probably the world's only ToF device having its detailed datasheet (106 pages) openly available at the company's FTP site.


ESPROS also publishes a Youtube video with a demo of its sensor's capabilities:



Update: Other than the ToF sensor datasheet, ESPROS publishes the detailed board and system design guide, and eye safety analysis.

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Reuters: Sony announces its plans to raise $3.6 billion via new shares and bonds to expand stacked image sensor R&D and production. It's Sony's first new share issue in 26 years, worth close to a tenth of its current market value. The company expects to raise 321 billion yen ($2.62 billion) from a public stock offering and a further 119 billion yen from a convertible bond issue to fund a boost in sensor output capacity at its advanced plants in Japan.

For some reason, Sony PR document blocks copy/paste function, so I'm showing a snapshot of it:

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DPReview quotes Business Weekly Taiwan newspaper speculations that the next Apple iPhone might have a dual rear camera, similar to HTC M9+ and Huawei Honor 6+ phones. The original article talks about an interview with Largan CEO Linen Ping and the chances that Largan business would surge in future. No credible source was cited for these rumors.

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Glasgow University, UK thesis "Structured Photonic Materials for Multi-Spectral Imaging Applications" by Iain James Hugh McCrindle presents a nice overview of the progress in plasmonic and metamaterials-based color filter designs. There are still not really competitive with pigment-based CFAs, but might improve over time:

Plasmonic CFA response (on planar surface)

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Insights From Leading Edge blog overviews image sensor stacking progress and recent publications. "Given the continued, aggressive stacked CIS development underway from independent device manufacturers (IDM) and foundries it’s predictable that stacked chip adoption will occur very rapidly over the next few years."

Sony ISX014 Stacked dice (Chipworks)

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It came to my attention that The National Academies Press book "Seeing Photons: Progress and Limits of Visible and Infrared Sensor Arrays" (2010) is available for free download. The authors of the book are stated as Committee on Developments in Detector Technologies, Standing Committee on Technology Insight—Gauge, Evaluate, and Review, and Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences. The book is heavily skewed toward military and space applications:


Talking about the progress of single photon detecting technology, the book has predicted in 2010:


There is also in interesting graph comparing DRAM capacity with imager resolution growth:


and a comparison of LWIR technologies:

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Imaging Resource posts a nice compilation of Sony 1-inch sensor 960fps slow motion videos. While other slow motion videos were published in the official RX100 and RX10 Sony playlist, these video clips have long advertisement tails:

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Marketwired: Teledyne Dalsa presents TurboDrive, a proprietary and patent-pending data encoding technology that allows some DALSA GigE Vision cameras to achieve breakthrough speeds, increasing throughput by as much as 150% while retaining 100% image data.

"We're pleased to deliver an innovative speed advantage to customers who need to push beyond the current GigE bandwidth limitations with no loss of data," commented Mark Butler, Product Marketing Manager for Teledyne DALSA, "It's available now in our low-cost Linea line scan cameras, and will continue in future area cameras set to launch in the fall."

The company's technology primer explains how the compression works:

"Leveraging neighborhood effect Image entropy is the first principle used in TurboDrive. But to reduce even further the number of bits required to encode pixel information (with no loss of information), TurboDrive considers the neighborhood effect. The neighborhood of a pixel is the collection of pixels that surround it. Although the exact distance of a neighbor can vary, in this analysis, we will limit our example to the adjacent pixels (i.e. those that directly touch the reference pixel).

For most pixels, there is little pixel to pixel variation and a lot of redundancy. Therefore, it is possible to efficiently use the information of the adjacent pixels to more efficiently encode the reference pixel. One way to see this is looking at a high-pass 2D filter implemented using a convolution. A simple high-pass filter has the sum of all of its coefficients equal to 0. The filter we use in our model has a 3x3 mask and it provides the largest weight to the center pixel.


The result of this filter provides the difference between the reference pixel at the center, and four of its closest neighbor. It can be seen that, for a uniform image, the 9 pixels have the same value and the result out of this filtering operation is 0. Essentially, the less pixel to pixel variation, the smaller the value output by this high-pass filter. One can intuitively understand it takes less bits to encode a small value than to encode a large value. Obviously, it is possible to play with the weights of the 9 filter coefficients of this model to adapt to the image content."

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Marketwired: Teledyne Dalsa presents TurboDrive, a proprietary and patent-pending data encoding technology that allows some DALSA GigE Vision cameras to achieve breakthrough speeds, increasing throughput by as much as 150% while retaining 100% image data.

"We're pleased to deliver an innovative speed advantage to customers who need to push beyond the current GigE bandwidth limitations with no loss of data," commented Mark Butler, Product Marketing Manager for Teledyne DALSA, "It's available now in our low-cost Linea line scan cameras, and will continue in future area cameras set to launch in the fall."

The company's technology primer explains how the compression works:

"Leveraging neighborhood effect Image entropy is the first principle used in TurboDrive. But to reduce even further the number of bits required to encode pixel information (with no loss of information), TurboDrive considers the neighborhood effect. The neighborhood of a pixel is the collection of pixels that surround it. Although the exact distance of a neighbor can vary, in this analysis, we will limit our example to the adjacent pixels (i.e. those that directly touch the reference pixel).

For most pixels, there is little pixel to pixel variation and a lot of redundancy. Therefore, it is possible to efficiently use the information of the adjacent pixels to more efficiently encode the reference pixel. One way to see this is looking at a high-pass 2D filter implemented using a convolution. A simple high-pass filter has the sum of all of its coefficients equal to 0. The filter we use in our model has a 3x3 mask and it provides the largest weight to the center pixel.


The result of this filter provides the difference between the reference pixel at the center, and four of its closest neighbor. It can be seen that, for a uniform image, the 9 pixels have the same value and the result out of this filtering operation is 0. Essentially, the less pixel to pixel variation, the smaller the value output by this high-pass filter. One can intuitively understand it takes less bits to encode a small value than to encode a large value. Obviously, it is possible to play with the weights of the 9 filter coefficients of this model to adapt to the image content."

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Sharp keeps investing in CCD development, presenting 14 new products and few more marked "under development:"

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Sharp keeps investing in CCD development, presenting 14 new products and few more marked "under development:"

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ESA Technology Exchange: Pixpolar pixel has been considered for ESA space programs, although the original article only mentions "A Finnish company [that] has developed a new image sensor technology based on patented MIG (Modified Internal Gate) pixel architecture."

"The Company has participated in the development of a silicon drift detector (SDD) for X-ray applications within the TRP activity. The main goal of the project was to introduce extremely low noise SDD macro-pixels for X-ray detection applications. The Company is able to produce very low noise photon detectors for X-ray, visible, UV, near infra-red, and particle detection applications. MIG sensors are ideally suited for Space application as they enable simultaneously asteroid tracking as well as direct detection of planets around stars through continuous readout. Increasing the frame rate does not increase the noise, there are no interface issues, and they are tolerant to radiation damage."

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Albert Theuwissen continues his IISW review, this time talking about stacked sensors from Omnivision, Sony, Olympus, TSMC, and NHK.

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16-megapixel IISW 2015 group picture and few others are posted on the Workshop site. If participants have interesting photos to post they are welcome to email them to jsolhusvik@imagesensors.org to add them to the web page.

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PRNewswire: Tektronix names Omnivision among early adopters of the new MIPI C-PHY standard, published in September 2014. OmniVision's OV23850 and OV21840 20+ megapixel image sensors for smartphones have implemented the C-PHY 1.0 interface. Using Tektronix C-PHY Essentials analysis software, OmniVision and Tektronix were able to successfully validate and characterize the C-PHY interface used on the two new sensors.

"With an up to 17.1 Gb/s data rate over a nine-wire interface, C-PHY provides the performance needed for high megapixel count image sensors along with low power consumption," said Brian Reich, GM, Performance Oscilloscopes, Tektronix. "Our solution for C-PHY transmitter testing allows engineers to detect issues early on in the product development phase and confidently assures transmitter devices' performance and interoperability."

"OmniVision is excited to have Tektronix's oscilloscope-based C-PHY Essentials software for validating the next generation MIPI interface. With its three-wire signaling, C-PHY represents a significant design and test challenge," said Paul Gallagher, senior director of marketing and business development at OmniVision. "With the help of Tektronix C-PHY Essentials, we were able to easily set up cameras utilizing the OV23850 and OV21840 sensors and confirm the C-PHY interface's compliance with the MIPI specification."

For some reason, the original announcement of OV23850 and OV21840 in Nov. 2014 does not mention C-PHY interface feature.

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e2v publishes its IISW 2015 papers on its web site:

"Electron Multiplying Device Made on a 180 nm Standard CMOS Imaging Technology" by Pierre Fereyre, Frédéric Mayer, Mathieu Fournier, Clément Buton, Timothée Brugière, and Rémi Barbier presents electron multiplying CMOS pixel:


e2v also publishes another IISW paper: "CMOS Charge Transfer TDI with Front Side Enhanced Quantum Efficiency" by F. Mayer, S. Pesenti, F. Barbier, H. Bugnet, J. Endicott, F. Devriere, T. Ligozat

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Albert Theuwissen continues his review of IISW 2015, now posting the part about image sensors for digital photography. This part talks about Samsung BSI APS-C sensor, Canon and Sony sensors with PDAF in every pixel, and DALSA large area CCD.

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GlobeNewsWire: TowerJazz announces that BrightWay Vision has chosen its TS18IS process to manufacture image sensors for its patented automotive cameras, specifically forward looking cameras in vehicles, to allow visibility in all weather conditions. BrightWay Vision has developed BrightEye, an advanced camera for day and night-time forward facing driver assistance functions based on gated imaging technology.

TowerJazz and BrightWay Vision jointly developed a unique gated pixel, something that until now has never been produced on silicon as it requires extremely fast charge transfer on the pixel. This sensor, based fully on a CMOS process, provides superior performance over competing solutions based on thermal vision technologies, and is much more cost effective. A "gated" sensor allows collecting light that is reflected back from objects at a specific distance from the vehicle, thus eliminating the noise level that is usually associated with ambient light. This sensor also allows the system to accurately measure the distance of certain objects from the vehicle and alert the driver accordingly.

BrightWay's Youtube video compares different vision technologies. The clip consists of three video channels captured simultaneously by three different cameras with the same field of view, positioned in the same direction:

• Pulsed Light & Gated Image Sensor (BrightWay Vision active-gated imaging technology).
  Outcome: The image is clear and the person in the kayak is noticeable. The backscatter residual signal originating from the reflected signal from nearby droplets is negligible.
• Continuous Near Infrared Light & HDR Image Sensor.
  Outcome: Backscatter originating from the reflected signal from nearby droplets is masking the image.
• Passive LWIR.
  Outcome: The emitted signal of objects (e.g. person on the kayak) are masked due to the droplets’ emitted signal.

"We are absolutely thrilled with the performance of our sensor using TowerJazz's leading edge CIS technology," said Ofer David, CEO of BrightWay Vision. "The tight cooperation on the development between our R&D team and the excellent pixel development team of TowerJazz, allowed us to produce a very high performing sensor that is now being evaluated by leading car manufacturers."

"Our distinctive technology and deep knowledge and experience in global shutter pixels allowed us to develop a unique pixel that cannot be found elsewhere and can provide a gated image in a high frame rate with extremely good pixel properties," said Avi Strum, VP and GM of the CIS Business Unit at TowerJazz. "We have very high confidence in BrightWay's capabilities and ability to drive this breakthrough solution into the automotive market."

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Qualcomm Research presents deep learning-based object recognition running on mobile device, powered by its Zeroth platform:

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DigiInfo TV publishes a video of a compact 8K camera and environment presented at NHK Open House days at the end of May:



One of the biggest NHK challenges is implementing the high speed video processing and delivering the broadcast traffic. Videonet article discusses a rapid adoption of PERSEUS codec developed by V-Nova, which possibly solves these problems. The London, UK-based startup V-Nova has been established in 2011, but came out of stealth mode in April 2015 "claiming that PERSEUS completely shifts the bit rate curve and makes it possible to deliver UHD in HD bit rates, HD in SD bit rates and SD in sub-audio bit rates."


V-Nova founders discuss the disruptive nature of their proprietary codec technology in this pre-launch Youtube video:

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Eric Fossum posts his papers presented at IISW 2015:

L. Anzagira and E.R. Fossum, Color Filter Array Patterns Designed to Mitigate Crosstalk Effects in Small Pixel Image Sensors, in Proceedings of the 2015 International Image Sensor Workshop, Vaals, The Netherlands, June 8-12, 2015.

L. Anzagira and E.R. Fossum, Two Layer Image Sensor Pixel Concept for Enhanced Low Light Color Imaging, in Proceedings of the 2015 International Image Sensor Workshop, Vaals, The Netherlands, June 8-12, 2015.

S. Masoodian, A. Rao, J.J. Ma, K. Odame and E.R. Fossum, A 2.5pJ Readout Circuit for 1000fps Single-Bit Quanta Image Sensors, in Proceedings of the 2015 International Image Sensor Workshop, Vaals, The Netherlands, June 8-12, 2015.

E.R. Fossum, Multi-Bit Quanta Image Sensors, in Proceedings of the 2015 International Image Sensor Workshop, Vaals, The Netherlands, June 8-12, 2015.

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