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Nature: A group of researchers propose a photography which uses light that has not interacted with the object being photographed. "This form of imaging uses pairs of photons, twins that are ‘entangled’ in such a way that the quantum state of one is inextricably linked to the other. While one photon has the potential to travel through the subject of a photo and then be lost, the other goes to a detector but nonetheless 'knows' about its twin’s life and can be used to build up an image.

Normally, you have to collect particles that come from the object to image it, says Anton Zeilinger, a physicist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna who led the work. “Now, for the first time, you don’t have to do that."

One advantage of the technique is that the two photons need not be of the same energy, Zeilinger says, meaning that the light that touches the object can be of a different colour than the light that is detected. For example, a quantum imager could probe delicate biological samples by sending low-energy photons through them while building up the image using visible-range photons and a conventional camera. The work is published in the 28 August issue of Nature."

In fact, the paper has been already published today:

"Quantum imaging with undetected photons"
Gabriela Barreto Lemos, Victoria Borish, Garrett D. Cole, Sven Ramelow, Radek Lapkiewicz & Anton Zeilinger

"Our experiment is fundamentally different from previous quantum imaging techniques, such as interaction-free imaging or ghost imaging, because now the photons used to illuminate the object do not have to be detected at all and no coincidence detection is necessary. This enables the probe wavelength to be chosen in a range for which suitable detectors are not available. To illustrate this, we show images of objects that are either opaque or invisible to the detected photons. Our experiment is a prototype in quantum information—knowledge can be extracted by, and about, a photon that is never detected."


The implementation is quite complex and, probably, can only be used in specialized niche applications, if at all: "Our experiment uses two separate down-conversion nonlinear crystals (numbered NL1 and NL2), each illuminated by the same pump laser, creating one pair of photons (denoted idler and signal). If the photon pair is created in NL1, one photon (the idler) passes through the object to be imaged and is overlapped with the idler amplitude created in NL2, its source thus being undefined. Interference of the signal amplitudes coming from the two crystals then reveals the image of the object. The photons that pass through the imaged object (idler photons from NL1) are never detected, while we obtain images exclusively with the signal photons (from NL1 and NL2), which do not interact with the object."

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PR Newswire: SoftKinetic announces the DepthSense Human Tracking Library (HTLib), for PlayStation 4(PS4). DepthSense HTLib was designed to track up to four players simultaneously, monitoring 21 different joints on each player, like shown in the promotional video:

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BDTi publishes an article on Movidius' recently announced Myriad 2 vision processor, said to be 20 times more power effective than the company's previous generation chip. The sensor is used in Google Project Tango devices, and the article is accompanied by a video presentation by Johnny Lee, the Tango technical leader:

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Business Wire: Toshiba launches T4KA7, a 1/2.4-inch, 20MP BSI sensor enabling 6mm z-height camera modules for smartphones and tablets. The new sensor features 1.12um pixels and improved frame rate of 22fps, 1.8 times faster than that of Toshiba’s previous 20MP sensor.

T4KA7 sample shipments start today. A reference module incorporating the new product is currently under preparation and will be available from Sept 1.

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SiOnyx Director of Marketing Steve Nobble talks about the hiring challenges in a Youtube interview. The 5 year-old company is planning to grow from 25 employees now to about 45 next year:

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Markets and Markets publishes its "3D Sensor Market by Technology" report. The company analysts expect the 3D sensor market to reach $3.4B by 2020 at a CAGR of 23.43% in 2014-2020.

3D Sensor Market by Regions

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PR Newswire: OmniVision announces the OV7676, a cost-effective 1/7.5-inch VGA SoC for mobile phones, tablets, wearables, notebooks, and IP network cameras. Built on mature 3-micron OmniPixel3-HS, the OV7676 is said to have best-in-class low-light sensitivity, SNR10 figure, full-well capacity, quantum efficiency and low-power consumption. The OV7676 also supports video-in-video functionality, allowing users to simultaneously record video feeds from both the front- and rear-facing cameras in smartphones, tablets and notebooks.

"The OV7676 is uniquely positioned to deliver high-level performance to a diverse range of consumer devices that have stringent requirements on function and value," said Paul Gallagher, senior director of marketing and business development at OmniVision. "With more mainstream devices incorporating cameras in their designs, we believe the OV7676 is ideally suited to meet the demands of this particular product segment. Likewise, the OV7676 can also serve as a cost-effective camera solution for emerging applications, such as IP security cameras and wearable devices."

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A crowd-funded experiment promising to extend the human eye sensitivity to NIR reports an initial success. The group of researchers was able to extend it to 950nm. The key idea is to restrict vitamin A1 intake, while administrating vitamin A2 supplement at the same time. The vitamin A2 supplement is not readily available and it took the research group about a year to get it. After the two weeks of vitamin A2-rich diet, the group has registered biopotentials showing the retinal reaction on the 950nm LED flashes:

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Sony announces new ceramic packages for ICX810 and ICX811 CCDs for security cameras (NTSC and PAL respectively). The new packages are more compact and sustain higher temperatures in reflow soldering process:


One has to note that the recommended reflow temp profile is quite delicate - most common reflow processes have heat peaks at 245-250C.

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Sharp Japan web site publishes an announcement of RJ5DY1BA0LT, the 12MP, 1-inch image sensor capable of 4K2K video at 60fps. The sensor is based on 3.1um pixels with 1420mV/lux-sec sensitivity (3200K light source, F5.6). When shooting 4K/60fps video, the sensor consumes 420mW, said to be the lowest power in the industry.


The 2014 Q3 Sharp LSI catalog shows somewhat lower sensitivity of the new sensor - 1170mV/lux-sec:

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The rumor is that Heptagon has acquired Swiss ToF camera and image sensor maker MESA Imaging. MESA ToF cameras and sensors are mainly used in industrial applications, while Heptagon is oriented to mass market wafer optics used in many camera phones. The synergy between the two cameras is not clear to me.

Historically, both companies started from Switzerland CSEM technology:

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Mantis Vision's CTO, Gur Bittan presents "Mobile Depth Sensing Methods and What They're Good For" at GPU Technology Conference held in March 2014. One can download the presentation video here or see it below.

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EETimes: InSilixa comes out of stealth mode with a promise to deliver a cheap DNA testing technology PCR by means of 32 x 32 image sensor array. The sensor is supposed to cost $20-$50, has 100um pixel pitch and is manufactured in IBM 250nm process:


In 2013, the startup company won Nokia XCHALLENGE award, as seen in this Youtube video:

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Egami blog publishes Olympus Japanese patent application 2014-135535 proposing a 2-layer RGB-IR sensor. The main purpose is to remove the need in IR-cut filter.

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iFixit teardown shows that Mantis Vision structured light camera is responsible for Google Project Tango tablet 3D vision. The teardown team quotes Google: "The IR projector is from Mantis Vision, and designed specific to our specs for field of view and resolution. It is custom designed to work in partnership with the 4MP RGB-IR camera on the other side."

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Business Wire: ON Semiconductor announces the completion of its acquisition of Aptina Imaging. ON expects to establish a new reporting segment, which will incorporate the financial results of the company’s consolidated sensor businesses, including the recent acquisitions of Aptina Imaging and Truesense Imaging, and ON Semiconductor’s existing optical, image and touch sensor businesses. The company expects to begin reporting financial results for the newly created segment from Q3 2014.

Taner Ozcelik, has been named SVP of the Aptina image sensor business and will report to Keith Jackson, president and CEO of ON Semi. Before the acquisition, Taner Ozcelik used to be Aptina SVP responsible for the Automotive and Embedded business.

For the Q3 2014, the acquisition of Aptina will likely contribute revenue in the range of $60M to $70M. Excluding the costs related to restructuring, and other acquisition related items, the acquisition of Aptina is expected to be slightly accretive to the ON's non-GAAP net income in Q3 2014.

In its investor presentation, ON Semi shows financial targets for Aptina business:

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Espros Photonics presents an improved version of the evaluation kit for its epc610 ToF sensor:


"The new epc610 Evaluation Kit is a significant upgrade from the former version. We opted for a completely new hardware design of the camera module. This module is based on our thorough background on TOF and incorporates the recent learnings from our customers.

A first novelty is an LED subsystem, which is optimized to illuminate the operation range in a more uniform way. Seven LEDs (Osram SFH 4059) are placed at the edge of the camera PCB. These LEDs cover the more distant operating range. Together, they deliver a high intensity, but due to the placement away from the receiver lens, their effect drops drastically at close range. This is where the single short range LED jumps in. Placed close to the receiver lens this single LED is much better suited to delivering light on to close objects, while its effect fades when the targets move further away. The result of this design is an illumination intensity with reduced peaks at certain distances. On signal level, this translates to a lower dynamic range that needs to be covered by the the detector system. Ask your sensor specialist and he will tell you why he likes that! With this design, the epc610 Camera Module works in a range from zero up to about three meters – depending on the target reflectivity."

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As written in comments to the previous post, Taiwan-based LIPS posted Youtube videos demoing a 3D camera based on combination of ToF and stereo. No explanation of the technology is given, other than saying it's compatible with Primesense openNI 1.5 and 2.x software.

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Image Sensors Americas conference publishes an interview with Richard Crisp from Etron on future of 3D imaging. Few quotes:

"I see the key applications in the area of control, security, visualization and reproduction. Significant market opportunities lie ahead in general-purpose computing/communications platforms (notebook/tablet/smartphone) as well as in fixed function appliances."

"The area of end application concepts, software and infrastructure are major areas of activity today. Once fully deployed, the impact of 3D imaging technology on our everyday life will be transformative in the same way the internet was: it will fundamentally change how we do things."

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Sensors Online published IMEC's Piet De Moor article "CMOS Imagers with Embedded CCD." Few quotes:

"Imec developed a CMOS compatible CCD module and included this into its custom imager 130-nm process... Imec implemented a number of process modifications to realize a CMOS compatible CCD module in its 130-nm custom image sensor technology platform. The embedded CCD module uses a single layer poly-silicon CCD electrode with narrow gaps to allow efficient charge transfer. It is customizable depending on application needs, and is compatible with back-side illumination."

"Embedded CCD, being a CCD compatible with CMOS operating voltages, opens possibilities for new and rich pixel architectures. For example, users could utilize an in-pixel CCD to implement a charge-domain global shutter functionality. Although this concept to image a full frame at the same exact timing is possible using CMOS imagers, it generally comes with a noise penalty.

Other possible uses of embedded CCD pixels include extreme high-frame rate burst imagers, where subsequent frames are stored inside the pixel using small CCD based analog memories. Certain time-of-flight implementations could also benefit from this technology. In addition to monolithic TDI applications for industrial inspection, TDI functionality is also used in hybrid infrared and x-ray imagers."

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Aptina has shipped 50 millionth image sensor for automotive systems. The company estimates that nearly one in every two cars with an imaging solution uses an Aptina image sensor. The company sees this as an important milestone in its ten years of focus on automotive imaging.

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Nikkei says that Sony has developed a sensor for automotive applications, which is "10 times as sensitive to light as existing chips, allowing for easier detection of objects in dark environments. The sensor can provide a color display of the surrounding area even in moonlight, enabling it to detect obstacles more readily than a driver can." Sony plans to start mass production of the sensor and begin sales to automotive equipment manufacturers in the latter half of 2015. The new sensor is expected to appear in car-mounted devices in 2016.

Aptina and OmniVision are leading the automotive image sensor market now. "But Sony aims to eventually pick up 50% of the market." Annual production of smart cars equipped with many cameras is expected to reach 100 million vehicles by 2025.

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Fox Business News, Seeking Alpha, WSJ, Barron's: Omnivision says it received a $1.64 billion takeover offer from a Chinese investor group led by Hua Capital Management Ltd. The investor group includes state-owned Shanghai Pudong Science and Technology Investment Co. Omnivision's board is reviewing Hua's proposal, and has made no decision yet.

Update: Here is the official Omnivision statement on the offer.

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Nature Photonics publishes a paper from a number Japanese universities and research centers showing 450x450 pixel imaging at 4.4 trillion fps:

"Sequentially timed all-optical mapping photography (STAMP)"
K. Nakagawa, A. Iwasaki, Y. Oishi, R. Horisaki, A. Tsukamoto, A. Nakamura, K. Hirosawa, H. Liao, T. Ushida, K. Goda, F. Kannari & I. Sakuma

The paper is supplemented by a nice videos explaining the camera operation and showing the demo movies (see more videos at the bottom of the Nature Photonics page):

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Why would HVAC system need an image sensor? Trane International's patent application US20140217185 "HVAC System With Camera and Microphone" by Kirby Neal Bicknell explains that the right question is not "why" but "how many image sensors":

"An image data set captured by the image sensor or an audio file captured by the microphone may be searched for the presence of predetermined conditions to reconfigure user settings. For example, if User A likes the room kept at 65 degrees in the winter, while User B likes the room kept at 72 degrees in the winter, an HVAC controller may recognize the presence of either User A or User B to change the default settings to the preferences of that particular user. In addition, the HVAC system controller may be programmed to prioritize one user over another user.

In another example, an HVAC system may be configured to cool a house when the temperature rises above 72 degrees. However, if an image sensor attached to an outdoor unit captures an image of User C or User D in the back yard, the HVAC system may override the default settings and suppress the cooling operation until User C and/or User D leave the back yard. This may be done to suppress the noise generation by the outdoor unit, or for various safety considerations. If User C is a small child, the operation of the outdoor unit with a high speed fan may present a safety consideration. If User D is typically present to mow the yard, presence of this individual may be a condition to trigger shut down of the outdoor unit to avoid grass being sucked into the outdoor unit, and clogging the heat exchanger."

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Image Sensor Americas conference publishes tow new interviews on its site. Forza Silicon CTO Daniel Van Blerkom talks about image sensor design:

"Backside illuminated technology (BSI) is now becoming standard, even in custom sensors. This, coupled with 3D packaging with dense interconnects, is creating an exciting opportunity in stacked sensors. We are currently working on projects utilizing pixel level interconnects in 3D stacked devices."

"Forza Silicon team is in the process of developing a compact, low-power 3D sensor technology that can enable a wide range of smart applications in the programmable world (otherwise know as the "Internet of Things")."

IMEC image sensor group manager Piet De Moor too talks about stacked sensor technology:

"I expect a big impact of stacked image sensors, not so much on the image sensing quality but rather at the system integration level, which will enable smart and very compact imagers for both consumer (e.g. mobile phone) as industrial inspection and security imaging systems."

"The additional functionality offered by stacking is the potential of an area distributed pixel readout right underneath the pixel area, which allows a very fast or high dynamic range readout, a local analog-to-digital conversion, local image processing or combinations of above."

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Business Wire: Aptina is in mass production of the ASX344AT SOC for backup cameras. The 1/4-inch, 5.6um pixel VGA resolution ASX344AT delivers 180 degree viewing with de-warp functionality. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) found that 180 degree camera solutions provide a nearly 60% improvement over traditional mirror-based systems and a nearly 15% improvement over traditional 130 degree viewing systems for backup accident avoidance.

"The ASX344AT is a comprehensive, robust imaging solution for automotive backup cameras and further expands our industry-leading automotive portfolio," said Taner Ozcelik, SVP of Business Development at Aptina. "By incorporating robust image processing with leading image sensor technology into a single solution, customers will be able to accelerate their time-to-market and reduce overall system costs."

The ASX344AT meets AEC-Q100 qualification with operating temperatures of -40°C to +105°C.

De-warp demo

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