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Senseeker Engineering announces the Oxygen RD0092, the world's first 8 µm pitch dual-band digital readout IC (DROIC). The Oxygen RD0092 supports a 1280 x 720 frame size at over 500 fps and dual-polarity inputs to provide compatibility with all industry-standard direct-injection detector materials. The solution was designed to optimize infrared imaging system performance through state-of-the-art integrated features and multiple operating modes that offer flexibility for a wide range of high-performance application requirements.

"The RD0092 is our first off-the-shelf readout product and we wanted to make sure that it strikes the right balance between being feature-rich and easy to operate," said Thomas Poonnen, Director of Engineering. "You can change operating modes or window sizes on the fly and toggle detector polarity or checkerboard integration pattern between frames, all of which can be accomplished by flipping just a few bits."


Senseeker Engineering announces the Magnesium MIL RP0092, an advanced 12 µm pitch high dynamic range dual-band digital pixel readout IC (DPROIC). Product sales are restricted to customers who have approval from the U.S. Government. The Magnesium MIL RP0092 supports a 1280 x 720 frame size at up-to 120 fps, with dual-polarity inputs to provide compatibility with all industry-standard direct-injection compatible detector materials.


Thanks to MJ for the pointer!

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Yole Developpement's Q4 2019 quarterly monitor "CIS: Q4 2019 went way above forecast but this was before COVID-19" states:

MARKET DYNAMICS:

• Q4 2019 is 17% above revenue forecast and reaches US$5,746 million: 11.3% of upside is due to volume upside and 9.1% due to ASP3 upside.
• The coronavirus outbreak impact of the epidemic will influence mostly on mobile and consumer CIS market with a drop in forecast on the global smartphone market expected on Q1 and Q2 2020.
• 2019 YoY revenue growth is higher than expected and reaches 25%, with a Q2Q growth at 38% in Q4 2019.
• CIS YoY growth should slow down to 7% in 2020 but this number will be aggravated by the outbreak of COVID-19.
• Long term growth should go below 10% within 5 years.

Y2020 NUMBERS: The best ever year for the CIS industry

This time reality exceeded Yole Développement (Yole) forecast quite significantly. Yole had predicted revenue of US$17.2b for 2020 and this prediction ended 11% below the confirmed numbers for the year. The extensive growth of CIS has brought this semiconductor specialty to revenues of US$19.3b in 2019, exceeding 4.6% of total semiconductor sales.

Reflecting on the year’s dynamics, Q1 and Q2 2019 had been underwhelming, both running 6% below expectation in a context of smartphone market saturation and trade war rhetoric. Q3 and Q4 totally reversed the gloomy trend of H1 2020, and the release of exciting smartphones with numerous cameras propelled the industry to overcapacity bringing US$5.7 billion per quarter to the ecosystem…

Q1 & Q2 2020: Short term forecast will be impacted by COVID-19

“What we cannot predict at Yole is the possibility of a systemic recession,” comments Pierre Cambou, Principal Analyst, Imaging at Yole. “People will still buy smartphones and smart speakers in 2021 so the risk is more a contamination coming from the financial sector than a biological threat,” he adds.

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University of Zurich-ETH publishes a video supplement to the paper "Event-based Asynchronous Sparse Convolutional Networks" by Nico Messikommer, Daniel Gehrig, Antonio Loquercio, and Davide Scaramuzza.

"Recently, pattern recognition algorithms, such as learning-based methods, have made significant progress with event cameras by converting events into synchronous dense, image-like representations and applying traditional machine learning methods developed for standard cameras. However, these approaches discard the spatial and temporal sparsity inherent in event data at the cost of higher computational complexity and latency. In this work, we present a general framework for converting models trained on synchronous image-like event representations into asynchronous models with identical output, thus directly leveraging the intrinsic asynchronous and sparse nature of the event data. We show both theoretically and experimentally that this drastically reduces the computational complexity and latency of high-capacity, synchronous neural networks without sacrificing accuracy.

In addition, our framework has several desirable characteristics: (i) it exploits spatio-temporal sparsity of events explicitly, (ii) it is agnostic to the event representation, network architecture, and task, and (iii) it does not require any train-time change, since it is compatible with the standard neural networks' training process.

We thoroughly validate the proposed framework on two computer vision tasks: object detection and object recognition. In these tasks, we reduce the computational complexity up to 20 times with respect to high-latency neural networks. At the same time, we outperform state-of-the-art asynchronous approaches up to 24% in prediction accuracy."

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Applied Physics Reviews publishes a paper "Photodetectors based on solution-processable semiconductors: Recent advances and perspectives" by Yalun Xu and Qianqian Lin from Wuhan University, China.

"Along with the remarkable progress in the field of organics, those based on quantum dots, and recently emerged perovskite optoelectronics, photodetectors based on these solution-processable semiconductors have shown unprecedented success. In this review, we present the basic operation mechanism and the characterization of the performance metrics based on these novel materials systems. Then, we focus on the current research status and recent advances with the following five aspects: (i) spectral tunability, (ii) cavity enhanced photodetectors, (iii) photomultiplication type photodetectors, (iv) sensitized phototransistors, and (v) ionizing radiation detection. At the end, we discuss the key challenges facing these novel photodetectors toward manufacture and viable applications. We also point out the opportunities, which are promising to explore and may require more research activities."

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Financial Times and Reuters report that Daniel Loeb’s hedge fund Third Point LLC uses lower Sony stock price to build a stake in the company again to push for changes that possibly include spinning off its image sensor business.

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Digitimes reports that image sensor packaging companies Tong Hsing (Kingpak acquirer) and Xintec are expanding capacity to satisfy growing demand for multi-camera smartphones. Both companies have seen their production lines run at full capacity in most of the Q1 of 2020 despite the fact that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic will drag down global handset shipments in 2020, according to Digitimes sources.

Taipei Times quotes Tong Hsing president Heinz Ru saying that the COVID-19 pandemic has not negatively affected CIS demand and he expects revenue to grow by a double-digit percentage year-on-year this quarter. To cope with strong demand for CIS services, Tong Hsing plans to more than double its monthly capacity to 160,000 wafers at its plant in Taoyuan’s Longtan District, Ru said.

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CICC turns into a virtual conference this year due to coronavirus pandemy. Historically, there is not that many image sensor papers presented there. However, this year there are two covering quite hot topics:

A 368 × 184 Optical Under-Display Fingerprint Sensor With Global Shutter and High-Dynamic-Range Operation
Chih-Wen Lu, Ping-Hung Yin, Ping-Hung Yin, Jia-Shyang Wang, Keng-Li Chang, Fu-Kuo Lin, Chia-Jung Chang, and Gen-Chiuan Bai from National Tsing Hua University and TYRAFOS Technologies Co., LTD
This study proposes a 368 × 184 optical under-display fingerprint sensor. The prototype sensor features low noise, low-power consumption, fast response time, and a smaller signal processing circuit area. A dynamic range of 120 dB is achieved with 8-segment auto exposure and dark level adjustment with programmable gain control. The sensor has a chip size of 9.74 mm × 4.6 mm, a resolution of 1154 dpi, and a sensing area of 73%.

Design and Optimization of Low Power and Low Light Sensors
Christian Enz, Assim Boukhayma, Antonino Caizzone, and Raffaele Capoccia from EPFL ICLAB
This paper shows that many low-light applications share the same readout architecture. It explains how the readout circuit can be optimized for reaching a minimum input-referred noise without penalty on the power consumption. The design methodology is then illustrated by three applications, including a 0.5 electrons rms CMOS VGA imager, a 2.6uW PPG sensor and a 10uW 1D time-of-flight distance ranging device.

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Phys.org: Nature publishes a paper "Ultrafast and broadband photodetectors based on a perovskite/organic bulk heterojunction for large-dynamic-range imaging" by Chenglong Li, Hailu Wang, Fang Wang, Tengfei Li, Mengjian Xu, Hao Wang, Zhen Wang, Xiaowei Zhan, Weida Hu, and Liang Shen from Jilin University and Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"Organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite (OIHP) photodetectors that simultaneously achieve an ultrafast response and high sensitivity in the near-infrared (NIR) region are prerequisites for expanding current monitoring, imaging, and optical communication capbilities. Herein, we demonstrate photodetectors constructed by OIHP and an organic bulk heterojunction (BHJ) consisting of a low-bandgap nonfullerene and polymer, which achieve broadband response spectra up to 1 μm with a highest external quantum efficiency of approximately 54% at 850 nm, an ultrafast response speed of 5.6 ns and a linear dynamic range (LDR) of 191 dB. High sensitivity, ultrafast speed and a large LDR are preeminent prerequisites for the practical application of photodetectors. Encouragingly, due to the high-dynamic-range imaging capacity, high-quality visible-NIR actual imaging is achieved by employing the OIHP photodetectors. We believe that state-of-the-art OIHP photodetectors can accelerate the translation of solution-processed photodetector applications from the laboratory to the imaging market."

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LetsGoDigital reports that Sony registered a trademark SenSWIR in Europe and in Canada. Possibly, this hints to an approaching release of a commercial product based on Sony InGaAs sensor presented at IEDM 2019.

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Sony publishes an extended report from its Technology Day held on September 18, 2019 in Japan. Part 4 of the report talks about image sensing stuff:

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SK Hynix publishes an article "Everything about the “1.0μm Black Pearl,” SK hynix’s Image Sensor," an English version of the previously published one:

"The four new 1.0μm Black Pearl CIS line-ups, which will be presented by SK hynix in the first quarter of this year, are the result of efforts to respond to such market changes. The company plans to actively target the rapidly changing smartphone camera market with the four new products ranging from 8 megapixels (MP) to 20 MP.

Starting with 1.0μm Black Pearl line-ups in the first quarter, SK hynix plans to introduce a 0.8μm 48 MP product in the second half of the year. The company aims to secure competitiveness in the CIS business and solidify its position in the market."

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Credit Suisse overview of China's semiconductor industry dated by November 2019 has a part about Ominivision technology:

"CMOS Image Sensor (CIS): a credible Chinese player now

CIS is one of the very few semiconductor areas where China has a top-tier player. We think OmniVision’s (now owned by a Chinese company, Will Semiconductor) CIS technology could be 1-2 years behind Sony, but at a similar level to Samsung. In the automotive segment, OmniVision is ahead of Sony and Samsung, and only behind On Semi. Driven by the geopolitical tension, OmniVision has been taking over the mid/high-range spec smartphone segment from Samsung since mid-2019, and also growing its share in the China automotive market. OmniVision’s gap vs Sony should continue for 1-2 years as most OEMs customise CIS chips for flagship models, so it will take time for OmniVision to regain position in the premium segment.

In five years, we expect OmniVision’s technology to be slightly behind, but close to Sony, and its market share to grow from 12% in 2018 (per Gartner data) to high-teens or twenties percentage in 2023. However, in the near term, we expect existing CIS suppliers to continue expanding production capacity to cater to the growing demand."

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EI 2020 paper "Camera unavoidable scene watermarks: A method for forcibly conveying information onto photographs" by Clark Demaree and Henry Dietz from University of Kentucky proposes an interesting approach:

"When a scene’s image rights need to be protected e.g. a stage performance, it is valuable to use human imperceptible methods to forcibly add markers to a camera’s perception of the scene regardless of the camera’s precise location, focus distance, or shutter speed. This work expands upon extant methods for adding human imperceptible, camera perceptible markers to scenes but does so with the assumption that the photographer will take natural steps to avoid capturing the markers. The proposed method utilizes a combination of a traditional method of adding an image to the scene, and projections from the scene onto the camera’s entrance pupil. This method is intended to function even when the target camera utilizes an IR filter and has a shutter speed 1/60 s.

More interestingly, the combination of traditional images with projecting onto the camera allows this method to not be reliant upon knowledge of the camera’s focus settings, or the precise location of the camera."

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An Apple video appeared at the number of websites, such as here and here, showing its new iPad LiDAR use cases:

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Melexis and Eyeware, a Swiss-based 3D eye-tracking technology company, work together to create an advanced driver monitoring system (DMS). The DMS leverages Eyeware’s attention-monitoring technology, which uses Melexis’ new MLX75027 ToF sensors with VGA resolution, to enable robust eye gaze and head tracking for in-cabin driver monitoring, even in sunlight. Eyeware uses 3D ToF cameras to overcome the limitations of IR tracking technology.

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TheRegister, TheVerge: Labrador Diagnostics sues Coronavirus test developers Biofire Diagnostics LLC and Biumerieux SA over camera-based DNA/RNA testing systems:


PRNewswire: Upon realizing that the defendants are working on COVID-19 developments, Labrador Diagnostics offered to grant royalty-free licenses to everybody working on Coronavirus tests.

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TheRegister, TheVerge: Labrador Diagnostics sues Coronavirus test developers Biofire Diagnostics LLC and Biumerieux SA over camera-based DNA/RNA testing systems:


PRNewswire: Upon realizing that the defendants are working on COVID-19 developments, Labrador Diagnostics offered to grant royalty-free licenses to everybody working on Coronavirus tests.

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Arxiv.org paper "Face Anti-Spoofing by Learning Polarization Cues in a Real-World Scenario" by Yu Tian, Kunbo Zhang, Leyuan Wang, and Zhenan Sun from Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, proposes polarization sensor for fake face detection:

"In this paper, we propose a polarization face anti-spoofing (PAAS) method using a deep learning computational model to learn physical cues in polarization images. Because polarization reveals the information of shape, material, roughness and other attributes of an object, it is difficult to imitate or change. Combining optimized CNN algorithm with the new on-chip four-directional polarization image sensor, our PAAS system is able to realize realtime detection of a variety of face spoofing attacks in a real-world scenario."

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DXOMark publishes an article "Smartphones vs Cameras: Closing the gap on image quality" by David Cardinal, based on the company's CTO Frederic Guichard's presentation at EI 2020:

"We have seen how advances in technology have helped smartphone cameras surpass compact cameras in image quality and many other capabilities over the course of their first decade, despite their small size. In their second decade, taking advantage of their unique computational imaging capabilities, they have begun to push past even DSLRs in many areas, including automatic image enhancement and organization. However, that automation also makes smartphone cameras harder to predict, and difficult to rely on for repeatable results— leaving a market role for more-traditional digital cameras."

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Apple iPad Pro features a new ToF LiDAR scanner:

"The breakthrough LiDAR Scanner enables capabilities never before possible on any mobile device. The LiDAR Scanner measures the distance to surrounding objects up to 5 meters away, works both indoors and outdoors, and operates at the photon level at nano-second speeds. New depth frameworks in iPadOS combine depth points measured by the LiDAR Scanner, data from both cameras and motion sensors, and is enhanced by computer vision algorithms on the A12Z Bionic for a more detailed understanding of a scene. The tight integration of these elements enables a whole new class of AR experiences on iPad Pro.

Every existing ARKit app automatically gets instant AR placement, improved motion capture and people occlusion. Using the latest update to ARKit with a new Scene Geometry API, developers can harness the power of the new LiDAR Scanner to unleash scenarios never before possible.

The LiDAR Scanner improves the Measure app, making it faster and easier to automatically calculate someone’s height, while helpful vertical and edge guides automatically appear to let users more quickly and accurately measure objects. The Measure app also now comes with Ruler View for more granular measurements and allows users to save a list of all measurements, complete with screenshots for future use."

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Autosens: "After extensive consultation with our key stakeholders, it is clear it would be impossible to run a successful face-to-face conference in Detroit this May. As such, we have decided to postpone the AutoSens in Detroit conference & exhibition until 17-19 November 2020. We’ve had overwhelming support from the community for this change. You will notice the new dates are indeed the original dates for our launch of AutoSens in Hong Kong – we will be moving the Hong Kong event into 2021 and will send out further information on this change as we have it.

On current estimates, travel restrictions will not impact the event on these new dates, and we plan to run AutoSens in Detroit in full, as originally planned.

It is important to make clear that AutoSens in Brussels, on 15-17 September, will go ahead as planned, I’m sure we’ll all be glad to be getting back to normal by then."

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Multiple news sties quote Korean message board Clien post saying (Bing Translation):

"Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo large sensor adoption

From Taiwan.

Currently, all three companies on samsung have already requested samples since December of last year, and it appears that the contract has recently been completed.

The 200 million-pixel-class sensor yield sought by our partners cannot be delivered at the desired time.

Switch order to 150 million retroactive sensors

The 1-inch Nonacell sensor is larger than the current 108MP-class sensor, and the 1-inch-large sensor is said to have a similar rear design for three manufacturers, Xiaomi and Oppo Vivo.

However, this model is barely yielding, so it seems that all companies will be limited to flagship pro models.

Xiaomi is developing with the goal of adopting it in the fourth quarter of this year, and Oppo and Vivo are said to be developing a combination of snapdragon 875 in the first quarter of next year."

Yanta Securities report compares Samsung and Sony market shares in terms of units and revenues (Bing Translation):

"Samsung Electronics' CIS sales are estimated to have grown from 1.8 trillion won in 2014 to 3.3 trillion won in 2019.

#1 Global Sony and CIS Quantity Standards: The share difference is only 2%, while the share difference by sales is 27%. So, Samsung will have to increase its revenue share with a high-end sensor strategy."

On the charts below, blue bar is Samsung, grey is Sony. The left chart depicts units market shares, while the right one is revenue shares:

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Ams publishes a video of its imaging technologies at CES 2020:



Valeo shows a demo of in-cabin monitoring camera capabilities:

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MDPI paper "Event Density Based Denoising Method for Dynamic Vision Sensor" by Yang Feng, Hengyi Lv, Hailong Liu, Yisa Zhang, Yuyao Xiao, and Chengshan Han from Chinese Academy of Sciences discusses noise problems in event-based image sensors:

"Dynamic vision sensors are very different from traditional image sensors in terms of pixel principle and output data. Background activity (BA) in the data will affect image quality, but there is currently no unified indicator to evaluate the image quality of event streams. This paper proposes a method to eliminate background activity, and proposes a method and performance index for evaluating filter performance: noise in real (NIR) and real in noise (RIN). The lower the value, the better the filter. This evaluation method does not require fixed pattern generation equipment, and can also evaluate filter performance using natural images. Through comparative experiments of the three filters, the comprehensive performance of the method in this paper is optimal. This method reduces the bandwidth required for DVS data transmission, reduces the computational cost of target extraction, and provides the possibility for the application of DVS in more fields."

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Singapore Nanyang Technological University publishes 2019 PhD Thesis "On-Chip Spectrometer: Design, Fabrication, and Experiment" by Date Zheng Shaonan:

"This doctorate thesis focuses on the design, fabrication and experimental characterization of novel on-chip spectrometers based on the photonic integrated circuits platform. Specifically, two different types of on-chip spectrometer have been demonstrated. Fabrication processes based on nano-silicon-photonic fabrication (NSP) technology are developed. The first part reports a pre-dispersed spectrometer with both high resolution (0.1 nm) and large spectral range (27 nm) using thermally tunable microring resonator (MRR) array. The second part of the thesis focuses on a microring resonator-assisted Fourier-transform (RAFT) spectrometer, achieving high resolution (0.47 nm) and large bandwidth (90 nm). The models of MRR and MZI thermal modulation exploiting thermo-optic (TO) effect are built and theoretically analysed. The third part of the thesis focuses on the development of core technology of the NSP fabrication processes, including waveguide structures, titanium nitride (TiN) heaters, thermal isolation trenches, and a waveguide-coupled Ge-on-SOI photodetector (PD)."

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PCWorld reports that its Editor's Choice Garmin Dash Cam Tandem uses Brillincs BRV0500 HDR sensor. This appears to be the first high-profile design win for the startup company:

"I’ve never seen the captures of a Brillnics BRV0500 sensor before. They differ from the Sony sensors we most often see, and are somewhat closer to the Omnivision sensors we sometimes come upon, in that they capture detail with decent color and little headlight flare. Pumping up the brightness in post-production will reveal even more detail. Note that this was with my headlights on, though I was parked."

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Twitter Engineering channel posts a nice demo of rolling shutter and aliasing artifacts:

An example of how a cameras capture rate changes due to the amount of light being let into the camera: pic.twitter.com/njppV40UX1

— Engineering (@engineeringvids) March 15, 2020

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Entropix publishes a video of how the its CVP improves computer vision and extreme resolution video applications:

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Velodyne publishes a video by Mircea Gradu, its SVP Product & Quality, explaining its proposed Diamond Rating System:

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TrinamiX announces consumer NIR spectrometer:

"trinamiX has developed proprietary and patented infrared detectors which can see light in a wavelength range of up to 3 μm – a highly relevant region in the infrared spectrum. trinamiX IR sensors are very small and have a high detectivity and as such enable the creation of a powerful, miniaturized NIR spectrometer: a ‘lab in the pocket’.

trinamiX is bringing this mobile spectroscopy solution to the market, making advanced technology accessible to people outside a laboratory. With our technology, a sample is no longer sent to the laboratory, but the laboratory instead comes to the sample."

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