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DPReview: RED announces a new Full Frame sensor for its WEAPON cameras, MONSTRO 8K VV.

“RED’s internal sensor program continues to push the boundaries of pixel design and MONSTRO is the materialization of our relentless pursuit to make the absolute best image sensors on the planet,” says Jarred Land, President of RED Digital Cinema. “The Full Frame 8K VV MONSTRO provides unprecedented dynamic range and breathtaking color accuracy with full support for our IPP2 pipeline.”

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Imaging and Machine Vision Europe digests Albert Theuwissen talk at EMVA-organised European Machine Vision Forum in Vienna, Austria on September 7, 2017. What new image sensor technology is being developed for the next generation of vision systems?

Some of the statements from the presentation and forum discussions:

• Stacked sensor is a major innovation to drive new features
• As other companies and foundries master the stacking process, the Sony early start advantage erodes
• Sony 3-layer stacking is an attempt to keep the technology gap between it and the competition
• Dietmar Ley, CEO of Basler, says that the CMOS sensors in industrial cameras now give excellent image quality and that only incremental changes are expected for machine vision
• Other advances in image sensors mentioned during the panel discussion included better ToF sensors and wider spectral range sensors

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Mediatek publishes a video showing its Imagiq ISP dual camera features:

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RPC Photonics announces a large-volume order for its Engineered Diffusers for a VCSEL-based, ToF 3D sensing application from a Fortune 50 company. RPC Photonics’ Engineered Diffuser provides uniform illumination with high efficiency in a custom-designed solution.

Michael Morris, founder and CEO of RPC Photonics said “Our customers come to us for solutions to their most critical optical design challenges. In this case, we were able to provide our customer with a design that met all of their needs in a cost effective manner.”

As a result of this engagement and many others, RPC Photonics is embarking on a significant capacity expansion to meet the needs of the rapidly growing 3D-sensing market.

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Open source Elphel camera unveils its 4-way camera device that is said to have higher depth resolution and less prone to artifacts than stereo cameras:

"Common approach for matching image pairs is to replace the two-dimensional correlation with a single-dimensional task by correlating pixels along the epipolar lines that are just horizontal lines for horizontally built binocular systems with the parallel optical axes. Aggregation of the correlation maximums locations between the neighbor parallel lines of pixels is preformed in the image pixels domain after each line is processed separately.

For tile-based processing it is beneficial to perform a full 2-d correlation as the phase correlation is performed in the frequency domain, and after the pointwise multiplication during aberration correction the image tiles are already available in the 2d frequency domain. Two dimensional correlation implies aggregation of data from multiple scan lines, it can tolerate (and be used to correct) small lens misalignments, with appropriate filtering it can be used to detect (and match) linear features."

The new camera is said to achieve 10% depth resolution at 200m distance with 15cm camera base.


Some 3D scene samples from the new camera are shown here.

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Light Co. publishes an interactive picture showing the complexity of its 16 module camera design:


Meanwhile, LightRumors site posts some links with the L16 camera reviews and user opinions and also talks about the users low-light experience.

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Mirae Asset Daewoo Research publishes "Autonomous driving; Age of ADAS: Invest in sensor market" note. Few interesting graphs from the note showing the cars become the major market for image sensors:

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TechInsights updates its Apple iPhone 8 Plus teardown report. The cameras cost about 10% of the BOM, slightly smaller fraction than that of iPhone 7 Plus:

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Yole Developpement publishes its webcast on 3D Imaging and Sensing :

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BusinessWire: Tessera and its subsidiaries file legal proceedings today against Samsung alleging infringement of 24 patents including some on bonding and imaging technologies:

Invensas Bonding Technologies (formerly Ziptronix) files an action against Samsung in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, alleging infringement of six patents relating to the Company’s semiconductor bonding technologies. The patents at issue are U.S. Patent Nos. 7,553,744; 7,807,549; 7,871,898; 8,153,505; 9,391,143; and 9,431,368.

FotoNation and DigitalOptics MEMS filed an action against Samsung in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, alleging infringement of eight patents relating to imaging technologies. The patents at issue are 8,254,674; 8,331,715; 7,860,274; 7,697,829; 7,574,016; 7,620,218; 7,916,897; and 8,908,932.

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Canon whitepaper "Advances in CMOS Image Sensors and Associated Processing" by Shin Kikuchi, Daisuke Kobayashi, Hitoshi Yasuda, Hajime Ueno, and Laurence Thorpe, first presented at the Hollywood Professional Alliance (HPA) Tech Retreat in Palm Springs on February 19, 2016 talks about challenges in 19um large pixel design (note a strange definition of conversion gain, probably meant to be image lag):

The image sensor design sought optimization of three key attributes of the photosite:
1. Sensitivity – determined by the quantum efficiency of the photosite
2. Saturated charge quantity (sometimes termed full well capacity) – that determines dynamic range
3. Efficiency of the charge transfer (sometimes termed conversion gain) – the goal being to transfer all electrons during each reset period to ensure full sensitivity

Canon says it was able to achieve 70% QE at 500nm in monochrome sensor.


The continuation of the whitepaper, mostly about extended DR and dual pixel is available here.

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PRNewswire: DOOGEE MIX 2 quad-camera smartphone is said to beat Apple in delivering 3D face recognition one month earlier to the market:

"The Face ID of iPhone X gives people one more reason to pay $999 for it, but what if the DOOGEE MIX 2 can do this as well? DOOGEE announced they would apply face recognition in MIX 2 for the first time, which will be operated by the front camera.

Since there is no room for the fingerprint sensor in full display devices at the front, face recognition may be a trend of the business. However, this is the first time that an Android smartphone using face recognition to unlock the full display. Considering iPhone X will be available in November, and DOOGEE MIX 2 is coming in October, it may become the world's first launched smartphone with face recognition and full display."

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Toyota announces an autonomous driving car Platform 2.1 densely packed with cameras and LiDARs from different manufacturers - I was able to count 16 of them:


"Platform 2.1 also expands TRI's portfolio of suppliers, incorporating a new high-fidelity LIDAR system provided by Luminar. This new LIDAR provides a longer sensing range, a much denser point cloud to better detect positions of three-dimensional objects, and a field of view that is the first to be dynamically configurable, which means that measurement points can be concentrated where sensing is needed most. The new LIDAR is married to the existing sensing system for 360-degree coverage. TRI expects to source additional suppliers as disruptive technology becomes available in the future."

Toyota video explains the new Platform 2.1 features:

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Sony publishes flyers of 2.8MP IMX421LLJ and 2MP IMX422LLJ Pregius sensors featuring 4.5um pixel and faster frame rates:


FLIR (former Point Grey) video explains the main differences between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generations of Pregius sensors:



Sony also added VGA IMX397CLN 2nd generation sensor to its lineup.

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Basler whitepaper "Applications for Time-of-Flight Cameras in Robotics, Logistics and Medicine" compares different 3D camera technologies:

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IHS Markit publishes Apple iPhone 8 Plus BOM estimation at $288.08, while dual rear and single front cameras cost is estimated at $32.5. There are also a proximity ToF sensor and an ambient light sensor that are a part of the sensor hub estimated at $6.65:


IHS Markit says about the iPhone cameras:

"The cameras have been calibrated for AR, and the A11 Bionic chip is also optimized for AR. Slow-motion video capture at 1080p is also smoother, at 240 frames per second – double from last year.

The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus have new sensors, with lenses featuring f1.8 and f2.8 apertures – brighter than the 7 Plus telephoto – in the iPhone 8 Plus. It also has new color filters. Studio lighting includes dropping the background out completely to black.

“From our BOM analysis, we can see that Apple invested heavily in the camera capabilities of the iPhone 8 Plus due to the increase in component costs,” said Wayne Lam, principal analyst, mobile devices and networks for IHS Markit. “Based on these investments, we expect improvements not only in the optics in the dual camera module, but also in computationally intensive requirements of the portrait lighting capture feature that rely on the graphical horsepower and neural engine (AI) of the A11 Bionic chip.”

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InstantFlashNews reports that Vivo, one of the largest Chinese smartphone manufacturers, is going to use dual pixel camera for 3D face scanning in its "bi-directional Face Wake" facial recognition technology.

Vivo X series smartphone product manager, Han Boxiao, says that the company's "Bi-directional Face Wake" is "the only one with the 3D face recognition", other than Apple's Face ID. "3D human face information scanning is achieved through a single dual pixel camera. Our face recognition is bi-directional 3D recognition, after tens of thousands of tests, the planning time is probably the Spring Festival in February this year." (CN Beta)

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Germany-based machine vision and industrial camera maker Basler stock market value more than triples since the beginning of 2017. The company earning reports reveal a surge in its imaging business:

10-05-17
"The strong demand is mainly due to high investments in the electronics industry in Asia along with a widely spread upswing in the market. Furthermore, bottle necks in materials and production led to increasing delivery times and these to early order placements."

09-08-17
"In a very dynamic market environment, Basler AG closed the first half-year of 2017 with new record values in incoming orders and sales. For the first six months of 2017, the VDMA (Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau, German engineering association) reported the strongest growth for image processing components since 15 years. For German manufacturers of image processing components this meant an order growth by 47 % and a sales growth by 43 % - in the same period Basler's incoming orders grew by 100 % and sales by 62 %.”


Thanks to JK for the link!

Update: Here is the English version of the stock price:

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Marketwired: Teledyne Dalsa announces production of the new Polarization camera in its Piranha family. First announced in Q2 2017, the Piranha4 Polarization camera is now in full production with improved performance.

The camera uses a quadlinear CMOS sensor with nanowire micro-polarizer filters. It captures multiple native polarization state data without any interpolation. With a maximum line rate of 70 kHz, the camera outputs independent images of 0°(s), 90° (p), and 135° polarization states as well as an unfiltered channel.

“Polarization brings vision technology to the next level for many industrial applications. It detects material properties such as birefringence, stress, film, composition, and grading etc. that are not detectable using conventional imaging,” said Xing-Fei He, Senior Product Manager.

The company's whitepaper gives the polarization sensor details:

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Phil Garrou reviews the recent image sensor advances in its IFTLE 353, including IISW 2017 (Hiroshima) papers and Samsung and Sony news. Hybrid bonding is said to be capturing most of the market.

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ST publishes a promotional video on its ToF presence detectors:

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GlobeNewsWire: Zion Market Research report "Image Sensor Market by Technology (CMOS Image Sensor, CCD Image Sensor and Hybrid Image Sensor) for Aerospace, Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Healthcare, Industrial, Entertainment, Security & Surveillance and Other Applications: Global Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis and Forecast, 2016-2022" unveils the company's view on the image sensor market:

"The image sensor is a sensor that senses and delivers the information. The information detected by the image sensor comprises an image.
<...>
ABB Ltd, Vishay Intertechnology, Inc, Delphi Automotive LLP, Honeywell International, Inc, Raytek Corporation, Meggitt Sensing Systems, Analog Devices Inc., Infineon Technologies AG, Motorola Solutions, Inc., Robert Bosch GmBH, Siemens AG and others are the major players in the image sensor market."

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SystemPlus publishes a reverse engineering report on FLIR Boson low-cost LWIR camera module:

"The FLIR Boson camera core occupies only 4.9cm3 without its lens, including a 320×256 pixel microbolometer and an advanced processor. The system is made very compact and easy for integrators to handle. It includes a new chalcogenide glass for the lens and a powerful Vision Processing Unit for the first time.

The thermal camera uses 12µm pixels based on a vanadium oxide technology microbolometer, the ISC1406L, which features a 320×256 resolution and wafer-level packaging (WLP) to achieve a very compact design. The die is half the size of the one in the oldest ISC0901 model, but gives the same definition."

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