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HTC 10 smartphone has both 8MP front and 12MP rear cameras equipped with OIS, said to be the world's first. The rear camera is based on 1.55um UltraPixels, has F1.8 lens and DxO Mark score 88, same as Samsung Galaxy S7:

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IEEE JEDS publishes early open access papers "Photon Counting Error Rates in Single-Bit and Multi-Bit Quanta Image Sensors" by Eric Fossum and "Determining Conversion Gain and Read Noise using a Photon-Counting Histogram Method for Deep Sub-Electron Read Noise Image Sensors" by Dakota Starkey and Eric Fossum.

Few figures from the papers:

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Invisage quotes a part of DPReview interview with Emmanuel Lubezki, who just received his third consecutive Oscar win for The Revenant this year:

DPR: You’ve worked with InVisage, the company behind QuantumFilm, and seem very enthusiastic about what that technology can do for filmmakers and photographers. Why?

EL: When InVisage approached me and showed me their sensor technology I got very, very excited. As people would say, it’s music to my ears. Actually, it’s music to my eyes what they are doing! What they’re attempting to do is everything I’ve been looking for, and that’s why I’m so excited to work with them.

The first thing I’m excited about is the high dynamic range of QuantumFilm, but the other thing that’s important is a camera that has a global shutter as opposed to a rolling shutter. That’s something that we suffered with a bit during Gravity. When you’re doing a lot of digital effects and stitching things together, not having global shutter can become a big issue, as you guys know.

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BusinessWire: Lytro introduces "Lytro Cinema, the world’s first Light Field solution for film and television."

“Lytro Cinema defies traditional physics of on-set capture allowing filmmakers to capture shots that have been impossible up until now,” said Jon Karafin, Head of Light Field Video at Lytro. “Because of the rich data set and depth information, we’re able to virtualize creative camera controls, meaning that decisions that have traditionally been made on set, like focus position and depth of field, can now be made computationally. We’re on the cutting edge of what’s possible in film production.”

With Lytro Cinema, every frame of a live action scene becomes a 3D model: every pixel has color and directional and depth properties. The camera features:

• The highest resolution video sensor ever designed, 755 RAW megapixels at up to 300 FPS
• Up to 16 stops of dynamic range and wide color gamut
• Integrated high resolution active scanning

Lytro Cinema will be available for production in Q3 2016 to exclusive partners on a subscription basis.

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Rambus' and Dartmouth College's Michael Guidash, Jiaju Ma, Thomas Vogelsang and Jay Endsley publish an open access paper "Reduction of CMOS Image Sensor Read Noise to Enable Photon Counting" in Sensors Vol 14, #4 issue. The paper talks about CDS timing shortening and SF bias current optimization to minimize 1/f, RTS, and thermal noise:

CDS timing is given in ns

Update: Another pixel noise reduction paper in the same Sensors journal issue is "Noise Reduction Techniques and Scaling Effects towards Photon Counting CMOS Image Sensors" by Assim Boukhayma, Arnaud Peizerat, and Christian Enz from EPFL and CEA-Leti. It covers mostly theoretical foundations of the pixel noise reduction.

Thanks to AT for the link!

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TSMC is to sell 5.1% ownership of Xintec. TSMC holds 10.2% of Xintec from its purchase of OmniVision's 49.1% ownership in VisEra Holding Cayman, Ltd. and 100% ownership in Taiwan OmniVision Investment Holding Co. Inc. (renamed as Chi Cherng Investment Co., Ltd.) on November 20, 2015. Of the above 10.2% Xintec ownership, 5.1% was sold on November 30, 2015. The remaining 5.1% announced to be sold now was released from the IPO lock-ups on March 30, 2016. After the Xintec shares sales, TSMC will remain as the largest shareholder of Xintec with approximately 41% ownership. TSMC announces that it has no plan to sell more Xintec shares in the foreseeable future.

TSMC expects to continue its close collaboration with Xintec in the areas of CMOS sensor, MEMS, and etc.

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Samsung Semi updated its last year's mobile products presentation talking about its recent CIS innovations and market shares:

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Sharp updates its lineup of distance measuring sensors, now covering a range from 1.5cm to 5.5m:

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Sony publishes a 2016 edition of its Quality and Reliability Handbook. Its section 5.1 talks about precautions when dealing with image sensors:

• Do not expose to ultraviolet rays, sunlight or other strong light for long periods. The transmittance and color characteristics of the on-chip lens and color filter may be affected.
• Avoid storing or using products at a high temperature or high humidity, as this may adversely affect the transmittance or color characteristics.
• The imaging characteristics may be affected by noise or other factors when strong electromagnetic waves or magnetic fields are approached during operation. Special care should be taken for CMOS image sensors as these are easily affected.
• Note that the image of CMOS image sensors may be affected by light leaking to the optical black when using an infrared cut filter that has transmittance in the near infrared range while shooting subjects with high luminance.
• Sony image sensor specifications do not assume use in environments with above-ordinary radiation levels.
• White pixels occur spontaneously in image sensors over time and due to cosmic radiation. White pixels that occur should be compensated using a white pixel compensation circuit.

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Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated a new approach to modifying the light absorption and stretchability of atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) materials by surface topographic engineering using only mechanical strain.

"We achieved more than an order-of-magnitude enhancement of the optical extinction via the buckled 3D structure, which led to an approximately 400% enhancement in photoresponsivity,” stated Pilgyu Kang, a postdoctoral research associate and first author of the paper, “Crumpled Graphene Photodetector with Enhanced, Strain-tunable and Wavelength-selective Photoresponsivity,” appearing in the journal, Advanced Materials. “The new strain-tunable photoresponsivity resulted in a 100% modulation in photoresponsivity with a 200% applied strain. By integrating colloidal photonic crystal—a strain-tunable optomechanical filter—with the stretchable graphene photodetector, we also demonstrated a unique strain-tunable wavelength selectivity.”

“This work demonstrates a robust approach for stretchable and flexible graphene photodetector devices,” SungWoo Nam, an assistant professor of mechanical science and engineering added. “We are the first to report a stretchable photodetector with stretching capability to 200% of its original length and no limit on detection wavelength. Furthermore, our approach to enhancing photoabsorption by crumpled structures can be applied not only to graphene, but also to other emerging 2D materials.”

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Statista quotes Goldman Sachs research predicting the industry reaching a value of $80 billion a year ($35 billion software and $45 billion hardware) by 2025, roughly the size of the desktop PC market today. The potential of AR/VR tech is extremely diverse:


Update: Re\code: AR startup Magic Leap publishes a patent on how AR will change a coffee drinking experience in the future.

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Imaging Resource, DPReview: Lytro exits consumer light-field camera business, apparently due to the lack of the consumer interest. The company CEO Jason Rosenthal says in his blog post "While consumer Light Field cameras offered a number of true technological breakthroughs such as interactive 3D pictures, radical lens specs, and the ability to focus a picture after the fact we had a number of disadvantages as well including 4X larger file sizes and lower resolution in comparison to other similarly priced cameras. The cold hard fact was that we were competing in an established industry where the product requirements had been firmly cemented in the minds of consumers by much larger more established companies. This issue was compounded by the fact that the consumer camera market was declining by almost 35% per year driven by the surge in smartphone photography and changing consumer tastes."

The company's Vimeo video talks about its new focus on Immerge VR cinema production platform:

Lytro Immerge from Lytro on Vimeo.

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ON Semi presents AR0237, a 1/2.7-Inch 2.1MP 1080p60 sensor for security and surveillance applications. The sensor uses DR-Pix technology with Dual Conversion Gain pixel and supports line interleaved T1/T2 readout with HDR processing in ISP chip, among other features:


PRNewswire: OmniVision announces OV9755 CameraChip HD image sensor for mainstream security, smart home, and IP cameras. The power-efficient sensor is based on 3.75um OmniPixel3-HS pixel. The 3.75um pixel is said to enable best-in-class low-light performance at 43Ke-/lux-sec and less than 0.2 lux SNR1 (the luminance value for a signal to noise ratio of 1:1). The OV9755 is currently in volume production.

"According to a recent industry report, the global smart camera market for security and surveillance applications is expected to grow from $1.93 billion today to $3.06 billion by 2020, with CMOS sensor-based cameras leading the growth," said Chris Yiu, senior marketing manager at OmniVision.

Other Omnivision announcements are design wins in Tamron camera module with OIS for security and action cameras, featuring 1/3-inch 4MP OV4689, and HiSilicon IP camera reference design with 1/3-inch 1080p30 OV2718.

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Globes: Israeli startup Unispectral closed a $7.5M Series A funding round led by Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), Robert Bosch Venture Capital (RBVC), Samsung Catalyst Fund and The Tel Aviv University Technology Innovation Momentum Fund. This brings the money raised by the company to date to $8M.

The company is developing the next generation of digital cameras which will use hyper-spectral sensors for enhanced seeing and sensing capabilities.

The company says it aims to transform the four-decade standard of color sensing mechanisms in compact cameras. Its imaging technology is said to provide an unprecedented low light sensitivity and rich color, complemented by better resolution. Unispectral's hyper-spectral sensor will be applicable to a wide range of use cases such as wearables, digital health and medical imaging, Internet of Things, industrial and agriculture applications, and beyond. This breakthrough technology, backed by multiple patents, is said to be able to distinguish material properties in solids, liquids and gases.

The company's PCT patent application WO2014207742 "A SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR COLOR IMAGE ACQUISITION" by David MENDLOVIC and Ariel RAZ reveals its technology:

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The newly announced Huawei P9 flagship smartphone features a dual camera based on Sony 12MP IMX286 sensors with 1.25um pixel pitch:

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BusinessWire: Ambarella introduces the S5 SoC for 4K and multi-imager IP camera designs. The S5 offers 4K multi-exposure HDR fusion, 360° de-warp and ultra-low light processing. Maximum performance is 4Kp120 or 8Kp30 of H.264/AVC and 4Kp60 frames of H.265/HEVC, while supporting multi-streaming, rate control and transcoding functions. The S5 supports the high-quality Main10 HEVC Profile (10-bit H.265) and Ambarella’s SmartHEVC technology to reduce 4Kp30 video bitrates to between 512 Kbps and 4 Mbps. The S5 image sensor interface and its advanced 1-Gigapixel/s ISP can be configured as up to four independent sensor inputs to allow high resolution multi-imager cameras.

“The S5 will play a critical role in the industry’s shift to 4K and H.265," said Fermi Wang, President and CEO of Ambarella. "With it, our partners gain a leading-edge image processor that delivers low power consumption, superior image quality, smart H.265 compression and a powerful quad-core CPU.”

Ambarella low-power architecture combined with 14nm FinFET process enables 4Kp30 encoding, including DDR, at less than 1.4 Watts

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PRNewswire: OmniVision announces the OV4686 and OV9756, two 1/3-inch RGB-Ir sensors that support dual band color filters instead of traditional mechanical rotary IR filters. Leveraging an innovative color array pattern, the OV4686 and OV9756 can capture high quality infrared images and video, even from long ranges, and bring superior color aliasing performance compared to previous generation offerings.

"Maintaining high quality images and color accuracy as lighting conditions change throughout the day is an essential capability for image sensors geared towards the security marketplace," said Chris Yiu, senior marketing manager at OmniVision. "By utilizing our second-generation RGB-Ir dual color band filter, the OV4686 and OV9756 sensors deliver excellent color performance and infrared imaging in a compact form factor well-suited for commercial and consumer applications such as smart doorbells and other IoT camera systems."

Built on a 2um OmniBSI-2 pixel, the OV4686 captures 1080p120 and 720p180 video. The OV9756 is based on 3.75um OmniPixel3-HS pixel and delivers 720p60 video. It also features low-power mode with system wake-up trigger functionality.

The OV4686 and OV9756 sensors are currently available for sampling and are expected to enter volume production in Q2 2016.

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BusinessWire: IHS iPhone SE teardown report estimates both front and rear camera module cost $13.30, out of $156.20 total BOM, or about 8.5% - about the same proportion as iPhone 4s cameras:

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Chipworks reverse engineering reveals that Apple iPhone SE FaceTime front-facing camera uses Omnivision 1.2MP sensor with pixel pitch of 1.75 µm. The die, which features OV2E0BNN die markings, has a size of 4.3 mm x 4.1 mm (17.6 mm2):


The rear camera contains a Sony stacked (Exmor RS) sensor with a 6.02 mm x 4.83 mm (29.1 mm2) die size. The pixel pitch is 1.22 µm, as was used for the iPhone 6s/6s Plus. The decapsulated die photos from the SE and 6s Plus rear image sensors appear to be the same chip:

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Sony announces that is has developed the world's first ghost catching device - Proton Pack equipped with a state-of-the-art, miniaturized superconducting synchrotron, which accelerates injected protons from a hydrogen plasma cell to capture ectoplasmic matter. The Proton Pack integrates the super slow motion video camera, allowing users to capture the matter in 960 fps rate and accurately record the movement of its target.

The company's official Youtube video explains the new product functionality:

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DNews posts a nice educational video talking about some people seeing life in 4 base colors, rather than in usual 3. Researchers claim that "Some 12% of women are carriers of the mild, X-linked forms of color vision deficiencies called “anomalous trichromacy.” Owing to random X chromosome inactivation, their retinae must contain four classes of cone rather than the normal three."

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PRWeb: Pinnacle Imaging Systems announces its Ultra HDR IP cores and HDR video capture technology, proven in its previous still-image software implementation. Ultra HDR provides adaptive tone mapping of HDR scenes up to 19 EV or 115 dB and can capture 120 fps (merging four exposures per frame), and stream full 1080 HDMI tone mapped video for display at up to 60 fps in real time.

“Even the most modern image sensors are limited in the dynamic range which they can capture,” said Alfred Zee, President & CEO of Pinnacle Imaging Systems. “We believe that cameras should be able to provide the same contrast range that we naturally see with our own eyes, so we based our technology on the human vision model. It’s this unique approach that allows our Ultra HDR technology to deliver such color-accurate, high contrast video quality.”

Pinnacle Ultra HDR technology addresses many of the complexities involved in HDR video capture including:

• Automatic Ghost Removal & Halo Reduction – Compensates for movement between HDR exposures, from minimal camera motion to moving objects between frames
• Adaptive Local Tone Mapping – Automatically optimizes the tone mapping parameters based on the shadow and highlight areas of each individual video frame
• Automatic White Balance Controls – Automatically calculates proper white balance settings for any scene or lighting condition
• Automatic Exposure Controls – Real time calculation and adjustment of the sensor’s exposure settings based on an automatic or manually selected region of interest to allow accurate exposure throughout a scene
• Shadow Exposure Bias Option – Ability to bias tone mapping with an additional Shadow Tracking option during the Auto Exposure mode for optimal shadow detail and data preservation, a key requirement for surveillance applications

With initial FPGA implementation completed, Pinnacle Imaging IP blocks can now be ported to ASIC, DSP+SoCs or ISPs. “We are currently seeing growing demand for HDR capabilities embedded into video cameras and production equipment,” said Ron Tussy, Director of Business Development for Pinnacle Imaging Systems. “Our proprietary embedded HDR tone mapping is a critical underlying technology necessary to improve data capture for technologies used in range finding and recognition in automotive, security and surveillance or any other field demanding video to be captured across very bright and very dark areas.”


FPGA-based Ultra HDR Dev. Platform resource requirements:

Existing FPGA Based Platform (full video path)

• 40k slices, 308 DSP blocks
• 600k byte internal RAM (155 36k bit BRAM, 32 18k bit BRAM)
• 28G bit external DDR3 BW, memory for frame buffers
• Currently running at 148.5MHz clock rate
• Can be ported to low cost Altera (Cyclone) or Xilinx (Artix)

Merge Block Details

• Single input data stream, one frame/exposure at a time.
• IP size is 480k gates coupled with 59k bytes of RAM.
• Requires 19G bit/s bandwidth on an external DDR port for frame buffering.

Tone Mapping Block Details

• IP size is 327k gates coupled with 300k bytes of RAM.
• Requires 9.5G bit/s bandwidth on an external DDR port for frame buffering.

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ResearchInChina's "Global and China Vision ADAS Industry Report, 2015-2020" report forecasts that ADAS systems will adapt stereo cameras and abandon mono ones:

"Camera-based vision ADAS systems can be divided into several categories of applications: 1) Lane Detection, i.e., LDW/LKA/LCA (Lane Centering Assist) to prevent the car from deviating in the working state of either ACC or TJA (Traffic Jam Assist); 2) Obstacles Detection and Recognition, i.e., FCW (Forward Collision Warning)/AEB (Autonomous Emergency Braking); 3) Surroundings Display, i.e., Parking Assist, including Rear View and 360°Surround View. 4) BSD (Blind Spot Detection); 5) HBA (High Beam Assist) and Night Vision.

In application field, warning-only ADASs will gradually exit market, while the ADASs with actuator represent the mainstream in the future. For example, it is hard for drivers to take prompt countermeasures, as the warning time of FCW is no more than 3 seconds. Moreover, AEB (Autonomous Emergency Braking) may become the most important ADAS application. AEB will be a mandatory safety function across the world during 2021-2025.

Future orientation of development will be stereo camera rather than mono camera, especially in AEB field. As AEB concerns human life, there must be as much performance redundancy as possible, thus ensuring the safety of drivers to the utmost extent. Stereo camera has an overwhelming advantage over mono camera in the aspect of pedestrians recognition. However, the majority of companies (OEMs & Tier 1 suppliers) still adopt mono camera, as AEB is largely an optional component rather than a standard one, and the costs of stereo camera are much higher, resulting in higher price and low popularity.

Pedestrians Recognition will be a must of next-generation AEB, meaning that stereo camera has to be employed. Mercedes-Benz, Subrau, Jaguar, and Suzuki have adopted stereo camera from the very beginning, while VW, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan all employ stereo camera in their experimental models. As to Tier 1, Hitachi Automotive System has used stereo camera at the very start, while Continental, Bosch, Denso, and Fujitsu Ten see stereo camera as the priority of development. These companies are iconic ones in automobile industry and their moves represent the direction of automobile industry as a whole.

Global automotive camera module shipments approximated 50.3 million pieces in 2015 and are expected to reach 62.1 million pieces in 2016, 141 million pieces in 2020, and 246 million pieces in 2025. There are three cameras on each light vehicle on average, respectively for LKA, AEB, and Parking. Unlike mobile phone camera modules, automotive camera modules are highly demanding on reliability and range of operating temperature. Major vendors are Panasonic, Sony, Valeo, Fujitsu Ten, MCNEX, Magna, Gentex, Continental, and Hitachi. Panasonic ranks first globally in terms of market share and is far ahead of the second place.

Global automotive vision system market size was worth about USD3.1 billion in 2015 and is expected to hit USD6.1 billion in 2020. Magna, TRW (ZF), Hitachi Automotive System, and Continental are in the first camp, with Magna being the world’s largest, and Autoliv, Valeo, Denso, Fujitsu-ten, and Bosch are in the second camp. As the demand from carmakers varies greatly, the market concentration has been lower and this will continue for a considerable time."

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Hamamatsu publishes a camera simulator showing an expected camera output for various image sensor and camera setups. Unfortunately, many image sensor imperfections are omitted, such as all color effects, hot and bad pixels, lens shading, RTN, PRNU, etc. Still a nice simulator, though:

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Sony low cost STARVIS sensor, IMX323, for security and surveillance applications is reportedly offered for less than $3 in volume in China. The 1080p30 1/2.9-inch sensor is based on 2.8um pixels. A complete datasheet of the new sensor can be downloaded here.

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P&S Market Research publishes "Global Industry Insight: BSI CMOS Image Sensor Market Size, Share, Development, Growth and Demand Forecast to 2020." Few insights from the report:

"North America leads the backside illumination (BSI), complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor market, due to several design and technological improvements in this technology... The Asia-Pacific BSI CMOS image sensor market is expected to grow at the highest rate, in the coming years, due to which, it is expected to become the largest market, in the coming years. One of the key reasons for high growth of Asia Pacific in this market is its swift transition from analog to digital systems...

BSI CMOS image sensors eliminate the bulk substrate in the devices to decrease diffusion component of dark current and electrical crosstalk. BSI CMOS image sensors have higher quantum efficiency, which in turn enhances the production of output images with similar signal to noise ratio (SNR). However BSI CMOS image sensors are mechanically weaker, due to wafer thinning, which results in more chances of breakage for a large BSI CMOS image sensor."

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EETimes publishes an article "What Do InVisage & InvenSense Have in Common?" by Peter Clarke, comparing Invisage and Invensense business models. While Invensense is successful at MEMS inertial sensors market, licensing its process to others does not bring much income for the company. So, the article questions whether this approach can work for Invisage.

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Seville University, Spain publishes "On Chip CMOS Vision Systems for High-Speed Applications" PhD Thesis by Francisco Jose Jimenez Garrido, dated by Oct. 2015 and devoted to smart sensors with fast in-pixel processing:

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