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Nuit Blanche: MIT team presents an interesting concept of lensless camera in arxiv.org paper "Lensless Imaging with Compressive Ultrafast Sensing" by Guy Satat, Matthew Tancik, and Ramesh Raskar. Actually, there is a projection optics in the system, but only on the illuminator side:

"Here we present a method for lensless imaging based on compressive ultrafast sensing. Each sensor acquisition is encoded with a different illumination pattern and produces a time series where time is a function of the photon’s origin in the scene. Currently available hardware with picosecond time resolution enables time tagging photons as they arrive to an omnidirectional sensor. This allows lensless imaging with significantly fewer patterns compared to regular single pixel imaging. To that end, we develop a framework for designing lensless imaging systems that use ultrafast detectors."


MIT Media Lab video explains how it works:

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BusinessWire: ON Semiconductor unveils AR0521 CMOS sensor – the first imaging product based on a 2.2μm BSI pixel platform for security and surveillance applications.

The AR0521 is a 1/2.5-inch, 5MP 60fps image sensor capturing images in either linear or HDR modes with rolling-shutter readout, and includes sophisticated camera functions such as binning, windowing, and both video and single frame modes.

"The ability to deliver high resolution, high quality video feeds in low-light conditions is becoming increasingly important in many applications,” said Gianluca Colli, VP and GM of Consumer Solutions Division, Image Sensor Group at ON Semiconductor. “This new device pushes the performance boundaries and will enable the development of enhanced indoor and outdoor security systems. Particularly key to its success will be the higher resolution that does not impact low light performance and the ability to generate high dynamic range output at frame rates of 30 fps."

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Teledyne e2v has won a Vision Systems Design Innovators Bronze Award in recognition of its Emerald CMOS sensor family. The Emerald CMOS sensor family features the world’s smallest true global shutter and significantly improves DSNU by a factor of ten when compared to other CMOS products.

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ALA: ULIS announces the launch of Atto320, the first in a family of 12um pixel, stand-alone, image sensors. Other 12um products are sold either as modules or thermal camera cores, where access to the thermal image sensor’s performance parameters is restricted. The new fully digital Atto320, a 320×240 microbolometric image sensor consumes less than 220 mW at 60 fps.

“ULIS believes in constant innovation and is proud to announce its very first 12-micron product, manufactured using its unique 12-micron pixel pitch manufacturing technology,” said Sebastien Tinnes, marketing manager at ULIS. “Atto320 is the first in our next-generation 12-micron product line. It showcases our expertise in developing innovative products for camera makers seeking more compactness and performance attributes that bring greater competitive advantages. This is a major step forward in our ability to fulfill our customers needs in optimizing the cost, compactness and performance of their systems.”

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Fayçal Saffih, University of Waterloo, delivers a lecture "Artificially Intelligent Imaging (AI2): CMOS Imaging & Standard CMOS moving together in 3D Nanoscale Integration and even impacting PV's" at Nanotech' 2017 Conference held in Dubai on April 3, 2017:

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BusinessWire: Ambarella introduces the S5L and S5LM SoC families for 4K IP security cameras. The S5L is designed for professional IP cameras and includes 4K HDR processing, multi-streaming, on-chip lens distortion correction, and dual video inputs. The S5LM targets the home monitoring market, including battery-powered IP cameras and video doorbell cameras, and uses a single 16-bit DDR memory for low-power operation. Both chips are fabricated in low-power 14nm process.

Both SoC families support H.265 and H.264 algorithms to deliver 4Kp30 video with bitrates as low as 512 Kbits/second, while maintaining video quality. A quad-core ARM A53 CPUs support smart analytics, including object and person detection, to reduce false alarms and maximize battery life in battery-powered designs. Both SoC families achieve extremely low-power operation and can deliver 4Kp30 video at under 1.5 Watts or full HD at under 0.5 Watts.

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DeviceSpecifications: Bluboo D1 smartphone to be released later this month features dual front and rear cameras and will be priced at $60. The company page says that the dual rear camera combines Sony 8MP and 2MP sensors, while the front camera has 5MP and VGA sensors. The smartphone also has a dedicated image processing chip for real-time dual camera support:

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Self Driving Track Days: While today's automotive LiDARs and Radars are still unable to provide a required 300-500m range, the autonomous driving algorithms need to be tested and ready for the future fully-capable LiDARs. The UK company offers a solution:

Babbacombe Model Village (www.model-village.co.uk), in Torbay, Devon, has joined forces with a driverless technology training startup in an innovative bid for grant funding from the UK Government.

The funding will be used to upgrade the road infrastructure at Babbacombe Model Village, to provide facilities to test driverless vehicle technology, as well as provide charging facilities for companies also developing small low-carbon vehicles.

“The biggest benefit”, says General Manager Simon Wills, “is that we can offer everything that the big test facilities can offer, but at 1/12th of the cost… that’s great for all the companies working on the technology, but it’s also great news for the taxpayer, and could really help us attract business from overseas.”

The Model Village, which has stood for more than half a century, boasts more than 400 buildings, and includes village and city settings, shopping areas and a variety of types of public transport in a small space.

Alex Lawrence-Berkeley, of driverless technology training company Self Driving Track Days (www.selfdrivingtrackdays.com), said he was excited about the project’s potential. “What most people across the industry recognise is that developing, and more importantly testing, driverless vehicle technology is really complicated.”

“We regularly work with companies developing technologies used in driverless cars around the world through our vehicle perception training and events, and those companies are crying out for a lower-cost approach. The great thing about a lot of this technology is a considerable percentage of it can be developed and tested on scale-model vehicles.”

“UK government is investing heavily in this area, so we are really pleased to be able to help the taxpayer achieve the best possible value for money by taking a fresh approach.”


Update: This is (was) April's Fool post.

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ArmDevices interviews Sony representative on large format 100MP sensor in PhaseOne camera. Sony roadmap in the video promises 100MP and 150MP medium format BSI sensors to be introduced in 2018:




Update: As Reddit user sissipaska noted, the 150MP MF roadmap is available on the official Sony site.

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Entropix proposes dual cameras for security and surveillance applications:

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SPIE publishes a video by Harald Haas of University of Edinburgh and pureLiFi Ltd. explaining LiFi basics and the recent progress:

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MIT Technology Review: Qualcomm is working on Glance camera module that combines image sensor and a low-power processor that runs computer-vision algorithms. On a smartphone, Glance could make new security features practical, says Jeff Henckels, Qualcomm’s director of product management and business development. He says that manufacturers are interested in using iris scans to identify people and unlock phones—but a device’s camera can’t be constantly active without draining the battery. A Glance sensor consumes about 2mW of power, as opposed to hundreds of milliwatts for a typical smartphone camera module. Its resolution of 320 x 240 pixels isn’t high enough to handle tasks like facial recognition or to map the image of an individual’s iris, but it can recognize when a person is facing a phone’s screen and then activate the device’s front-facing camera to scan his or her iris.

Henckels says engineering samples of Glance hardware and a software development kit are in the hands of several device makers, and that smartphone vendors are testing the iris-scan capabilities. He declined to say when products featuring the technology would appear, or when Qualcomm would turn it into a commercial product.

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GlobeNewsWire: In line with its new focus on computer vision applications, Himax announces the UltraSenseIR HM1062 HD sensor delivering 44% NIR QE for a wide range of eye-safe, computer vision applications for compact devices such as front facing cameras for smartphones, notebooks, wearable devices, drones and other embedded devices. The company does not specify the wavelength at which the high QE has been measured.

“Excellent NIR sensitivity with low noise performance is critical for high quality image data acquisition and allows computer vision systems to process and analyze the image data more effectively, and even capture data that would have been undetectable with a lower sensitivity sensor,” said Amit Mittra, CTO of Himax Imaging. “In an active light system, laser diodes are commonly used to project patterns that are superimposed on to the scene and decoded by the computer vision algorithms. The Himax UltraSenseIR™ NIR sensitivity allows for the reduction of the laser output power which can substantially improve the eye safety of the device.”

“Our growing UltraSenseIR™ product line has received positive feedback from our partners due to advancements in system performance and also opportunities to reduce system cost, power and mechanical dimensions,” said Jordan Wu, CEO of Himax Technologies. “As many industries and applications place more sensing elements and intelligence into smaller devices, the HM1062 compact 1/6.5-inch optical format, small package size and low external component requirement is ideal for a wide variety of embedded computer vision devices on the applications of handsets, tablets, laptops, other consumer electronics, automobiles, surveillance and Internet of Things.”

The HM1062 operates up to 60 fps in 720p HD resolution, and up to 120 fps in binning or sub-sampling mode over MIPI CSI2. The HM1062 is currently sampling and scheduled for mass production by the second quarter of 2017.

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Mobileye CTO & Chairman Amnon Shashua delivers a keynote at Bosch ConnectedWorld Conference 2017:

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Teledyne and e2v jointly announce the successful completion of the acquisition by Teledyne of e2v. The aggregate value for the transaction was approximately £627M (or approximately $789M) taking into account e2v stock options and net debt as of September 2016. For the year ended March 31, 2016, e2v had sales of approximately £236M. Excluding transaction-related expenses, Teledyne management expects the transaction to be accretive to earnings per share.

“Every business within e2v is highly complementary to Teledyne and will contribute to our balanced portfolio of highly engineered products. From industrial machine vision to space-based imaging... our respective capabilities and engineering-centric cultures are truly a great fit,” said Robert Mehrabian, Chairman, President and CEO of Teledyne. “We are proud to continue e2v’s 70-year legacy of innovation and specialized high technology products. In addition, e2v adds greater critical mass and technical resources to Teledyne in key locations, including the United Kingdom; Grenoble, France; and Seville, Spain.”

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Yole publishes its analysis of Intel-Mobileye deal, mostly saying that both companies need each other to compete on the heated autonomous driving would-be market. Yole predicts the 2020-s will be the decade of sensing:


The autonomous vehicles take-off is expected in 5-10 years from now:


And some market data:

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Nikkei: Panasonic prepares a restructuring plan to improve its financial performance. As a part of the plan, Panasonic contemplates selling its share in TowerJazz-Panasonic JV: "In the chip business, the company is weighing unloading shares in a joint venture with an Israeli enterprise."

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It came to my attention that CRC Press released "High Performance CMOS Range Imaging: Device Technology and Systems Considerations" by Andreas Suss in 2016. The book appears to be a version of Andreas Suss 2014 PhD Thesis, freely available on Duisburg University site.

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MIT Center for Brains, Minds and Machines publishes a lecture "The Convergence of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Towards Enabling Autonomous Driving" by Amnon Shashua, Mobileye CTO and Chairman, that has been live streamed yesterday. The lecture also has a nice Q&A session starting 0:51:00 time, the camera requirements questions start at 1:08:34:



Thanks to DS for the link!

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AutomotiveNews: Magna VP Joel Gibson said the total market value for camera-based driver assistance systems is “growing very quickly” and he expects it to be worth about $10b per year by 2020. “It’s a very large growth area for Magna,” he said. Magna expects its car camera business to grow to $1B from the current $450M per year.

On another automotive news, AutoSens publishes a tutorial "What is LiDAR and why is it so important to driverless cars?" explaining the LiDAR basics and its strengths and weaknesses.

In yet another automotive news, NYTimes reports a use case for an in-car camera: "In France, Valeo, another supplier of automotive technology, is developing an infrared camera system that will monitor children in the rear seat as well as the driver’s shoulder, neck and head movements, looking for deviations from the norm.

Checking body temperature and even how the driver is dressed, the system will also be able to customize the interior temperature for each driver, said Guillaume Devauchelle, the company’s innovation director."

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Systemplus Consulting publishes reverse engineering report of ST SPAD-based proximity sensor inside Apple iPhone 7 Plus. "The custom Apple device measures 2.80 mm x 2.40 mm, half the size of the rest of STMicroelectronics’s portfolio." VCSEL is integrated on top of the SPAD sensor chip:

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ST kindly permitted me to publish few slides from Bruce Rae presentation "Fully industrialised Foundry SPAD in an optimised 130nm CMOS imaging technology" at Image Sensors Europe in London, UK, on March 15, 2017:

Update: ST asked me to add a following statement:

"STM adds SPADs to its CIS foundry business in addition to its advanced CIS processes and pixels. STM is now enriching its CIS foundry offer with access to its 130nm CMOS SPAD technology. The fully industrialized SPAD pixel and associated IPs, shipped in more than 250 Million of STM’s FlightSenseTM technology based products, is now available to STM customers under a foundry business model. Customers can now benefit from more than 10 years of R&D, as well as a proven, reliable, high volume capable supply chain. Regular MPW shuttles are planned, starting in Sept 2017."

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Digitimes: Taiwan-based Coasia Microelectronics and Sunnic Technology & Merchandise, report 17.7% and 18% YoY sales growth, according to industry sources. Coasia distributes CMOS sensors mainly for Samsung, while Sunnic sells Sony's CMOS sensors.

The growth in demand in 2017 has been attributed to a growing number of new smartphones including entry-level and mid-range models that will feature a dual-lens setup, said Digitimes sources.

Indeed, even $65 phones such as DooGee Shoot 2 feature dual 5MP rear camera these days:

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EETimes quotes Yole's analyst Pierre Cambou findings that ST SPAD imager might appear in the oncoming Apple iPhone 8. Few quotes:

"Yole’s educated guess is that ST is bringing a brand new 3D (array) imager to Apple iPhone 8 — an innovation that will alter the phone’s user interface.

Here’s a fact: As many as 10 Apple engineers have been working on imaging in Grenoble over the last few years. Their presence is open knowledge among locals, according to Cambou. The local newspaper reported last summer that Apple signed a lease with the city of Grenoble to open a research and development center there. The 800-square-meter facility will reportedly focus on imaging components and employ about thirty engineers.

Cambou suspects that ST could be using Silicon on insulator (SOI)-based wafers for the new SPAD 3D imagers. He said, “This is the way people have been doing BSI in the Grésivaudan valley (in Crolles…) for a long time.”

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Embedded Vision publishes Rockchip article comparing its AP image processing engine with one from Apple:

"The RK1608 utilizes the CEVA-XM4 DSP core to perform frame-based processing, rather than line-based as in ISP. Because it is specifically designed for image processing, it can perform much faster than a standard AP. It includes features like multi frame de-noise, zig-zag HDR for preview and capture, HDR processing of multi-exposed image, depth map generation, super resolution and pseudo optical zoom. The vision coprocessor’s function is not dependent on the ISP, so it can be adapted to any platform.

One phone already available on the market that uses the RK1608 for enhanced photography, is the ASUS ZenFone 3 Zoom smartphone, launched earlier this year at CES 2017. If there was ever a phone that truly threatened DSLRs, this is it. This device was designed to be a camera just as much as it was designed to be a phone. The aperture, pixel size and sensor are among the largest in the industry at f/1.7, 1.4µm and 1/2.55”, respectively. It uses new SuperPixel camera technology for clearer images at night or in low-light environments and offers 2.5-times greater light sensitivity than the Apple iPhone 7 Plus."

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