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BusinessWire: InVisage announces the addition of famed cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC to the company advisory board. Mr. Lubezki is the cinematographer of numerous award-winning films including Gravity (2013) and Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014). Mr. Lubezki is the Company’s first artistic advisor and will help shape and fine-tune the specifications of upcoming InVisage QuantumFilm camera image sensors for smartphones and mobile devices.

“We are honored to have Mr. Lubezki join our advisory board,” said Jess Lee, president and CEO of InVisage. “With Mr. Lubezki’s artistic direction, we intend to bridge the gap between Hollywood and advanced nanotechnology, bringing Hollywood quality to QuantumFilm-enabled smartphones and mobile devices.”

“InVisage understands that advancing film is equal parts artistry and technology,” said Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC. “I was drawn to InVisage and their technology because of the ground-breaking potential for greater dynamic range in cameras ranging from smartphones to professional video cameras, a crucial capability for cinematographers and everyday users alike.”

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PRNewswire: OmniVision unveils its latest PureCel Plus and PureCel Plus-S pixel technologies featuringa buried color filter array (BCFA) and deep trench isolation (DTI).

One of the key benefits of PureCel Plus technology is the reduction of color crosstalk and color noise, improving color reproduction under low-light conditions. Another critical benefit is the angular response of the sensor. With PureCel Plus technology, OmniVision's sensors can provide higher signal response at a larger incident light angle than the one with predecessor technologies. As a result, with PureCel Plus sensors, module design houses can use brighter lenses and build camera systems with much thinner geometries.

"It has long been an industry-wide presumption that increasing resolution by reducing pixel size may result in the degradation of camera performance, due to low-light sensitivity. However, as we are seeing with PureCel Plus, that is not always the case," said Song Xue, senior manager of sensor technology at OmniVision. "Our new 1.0 micron sensors built on PureCel Plus technology will exhibit the same level of signal-to-noise ratio as 1.12 micron sensors built on our previous generation technologies. Today's advancement enables us to continue reducing pixel size while maintaining the highest image and video quality standards."

In addition to PureCel Plus, PureCel Plus-S leverages stacked die technology to deliver high functionality with minimal chip size.

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PRNewswire: OmniVision announces the OV16860, a new 16MP PureCel Plus-S image sensor. Compared to previous generation OmniVision 16MP sensors, the OV16860 delivers improved low-light performance and faster readout architecture with a larger 1.3um pixel. The sensor also features HDR, PDAF, and slow motion video recording.

"Industry reports forecast continued growth in the 13‑ to 16‑megapixel resolution segment in 2016 and beyond, attributable to what is expected to be rapid adoption of 16-megapixel resolution in high-end smartphones starting in 2016. The action camera segment with similar camera resolution is also expected to grow quickly through 20191," said James Liu, senior technical marketing manager at OmniVision. "The OV16860's faster frame rate aligns perfectly with the feature set requirement of high-end smartphones and rugged action cameras for operating in high resolution and high frame rate modes."

The OV16860 is the first image sensor built on OmniVision's new PureCel Plus-S architecture. This architecture features a larger pixel size and offers a number of pixel performance improvements over traditional 1.12um 16MPsensors. The performance benefits of this new technology include a 33% improvement in full-well capacity, a 40% improvement in low light performance and dramatically reduced pixel crosstalk. Additionally, the OV16860 enables a nominal operating digital voltage (DVDD) spec of 1.0V, and thus requires 40% less power than the previous generation OV16825.

The 1/2.4-inch OV16860 supports high-quality slow motion video capture with full FOV. The sensor capture 16MP images and video at 45fps, 4K2K video at 60fps, and 1080p at 120fps via high speed D-PHY and C-PHY interfaces.

The OV16860 can fit into a 10.5 x 10.5 mm module with a low z-height of 5.8 mm. The sensor is currently available for sampling, and is expected to enter volume production in Q4 2015.

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ON Semi patent application US20150312499 "Imaging systems and methods for mitigating pixel data quantization error" by Roger Panicacci, Jeffery Beck, and Barry Vanhoff proposes dither to reduce structured noise in image sensors:

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Apple patent application US20150312479 "Image sensor having a uniform digital power signature" by Andrew Mcmahon, Chiajen Lee, and Michael Malone says "there is a need for a system and technique for reducing the effect of digital logic interference on the quality of a digital image. The techniques disclosed herein can be used to produce a digital image having reduced or minimized visual artifacts without significantly increasing the size of the sensor or the drawbacks of some traditional noise reduction techniques."

Apple proposes to add dummy operations 525 to the digital pipeline, so that the digital noise is substantially constant in all time slots:

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TSMC patent application US20150311248 "Back side illuminated image sensor with deep trench isolation structures and self-aligned color filters" by Kuo-cheng Lee, Yun-wei Cheng, Yung-lung Hsu, and Hsin-chi Chen proposes its own way to manufacture pixels with DTI and buried CFA:

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Rice University team is to present a paper "FlatCam: Replacing Lenses with Masks and Computation" at the Extreme Imaging Workshop in Santiago, Chile on Dec. 17, 2015. The research paper is written by M. Salman Asif, Ali Ayremlou, Ashok Veeraraghavan, Richard Baraniuk, and Aswin Sankaranarayanan (CMU) and proposes an imaging system with no lens, somewhat similar to Rambus Lensless Smart Sensors (LSS).

"Our FlatCam design places an amplitude mask (with transparent and opaque features that transmit and block light, respectively) almost immediately in front of the sensor array (see Fig. 1). While we focus on a single mask for
exposition purposes, the concept extends to multiple amplitude masks in a straightforward manner. ...the main advantage of the FlatCam design is that it allows us to use a large sensor arrays for a given device thickness constraint, thereby significantly increasing the light collection capabilities of devices under thickness constraints.

...We reconstructed 512 × 512 RGB images from our prototype using 512 × 512 RGB sensor measurements."

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PRNewswire: OmniVision announces two 5MP image sensors, the OV5675 and OV5695 for front-facing camera applications in smartphones and tablets.

"Front-facing cameras in smartphones and tablets have evolved quickly from low-resolution sensors with limited functionality and relatively low consumer expectations to high performance sensors with a host of advanced features," said Archie de Guzman, senior product marketing manager at OmniVision. "In this regard, we have developed the OV5675 and OV5695 as cost-effective upgrade solutions that can capture more dynamic and detailed images and video, via improved resolution and pixel performance."

Built on 1.12um PureCel pixel, the 1/5-inch OV5675 is said to be the smallest 5MP image sensor currently available on the market today. The sensor captures full resolution video in a native 4:3 aspect ratio at 30fps, or 720p and 1080p video at 60 FPS. Compared to previous generation image sensors, the OV5675 offers improved QE, crosstalk, and power efficiency in a compact package with a z-height of less than 4 mm.

The 1/4-inch OV5695 utilizes 1.4-micron OmniBSI+™ pixel to capture full resolution video in a native 4:3 aspect ratio at 30fps, 1080p video at 30fps, or 720p video at 60fps with support for interlaced HDR (iHDR). The OV5695 supports low power mode, which further reduces power consumption and improves battery life.

The OV5675 and OV5695 are expected to be shipping in volume production at the end of Q4 2015.

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Wainhouse Research reports that Cisco decided to shut down its video conferencing camera team in India: "Bangalore center has demonstrated core competencies in system architecture and design and a host of ancillary hardware, software, and microcode skills on the way to delivering five cameras, an H.265 codec, and one integrated video conferencing endpoint (the SX-10) since 2008. The group grew to around 50 people, but the shutdown announced last week involves termination of approximately 35 technical folks, according to our source." Here is the short presentation on the team's history and achievements:

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SeekingAlpha: Tessera, the new home for Ziptronix wafer bonding technology, updates on the ongoing lawsuit against Omnivision and TSMC: "in connection with our acquisition of the Ziptronix, we inherited a litigation matter that was already pending at the time of the acquisition between Ziptronix on the one hand and TSMC and Omnivision technologies or OVT on the other. Ziptronix filed this case in December 2010 in federal court in the urban district of California, alleging at TSMC and OVT infringed nine of Ziptronix zibond patents. TSMC also asserted counterclaims alleging that Ziptronix infringes certain TSMC patents. There is no trial date set in the case, the party have been engaging in mediation discussion before the acquisition and after and are planning to continue do engage in such discussions.

As we have demonstrated numerous times over the past two years, our intent is to reach a settlement that enable a closer technical working relationship and collaboration between the companies."

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EETimes publishes a nice history of camera phone, from the first one in 1995 to nowadays, and how it changed the imaging.

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BusinessWire: Heptagon introduces LAURA ToF 3DRanger sensor and the first member in a new family of scalable ToF sensor modules. Laura is said to be "the first smart sensor with integrated logic that simplifies system architecture and speeds up time to market. The new product provides longer range, faster distance measurements, lower power draw and improved lighting performance than existing laser based distance sensors." Unlike phase detecting AF systems, LAURA is said to enable fast AF focus lock in any lighting conditions including in video mode. Heptagon has developed its patented “phase modulation” ToF pixel said to have best-in-class sensitivity and speed, as well as excellent background light rejection.

“We’re delighted to be launching LAURA, the first member in our new family of ToF smart sensors,” says René Kromhof - SVP, Sales & Marketing of Heptagon. “LAURA is a complete ToF sensing solution that delivers automatic range calculations. It integrates an IR illuminator, IR sensor and a micro controller in a single package. This significantly lowers host CPU computations and simplifies usage. In addition, it enables integrated features like automatic exposure time adjustment that improves use in all lighting conditions.”

LAURA comes in a small, thermally efficient SMD package with embedded filters to allow for lower-cost cover glass designs.

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IRLYNX, the CMOS-based infrared sensors company, has completed a €2M Series A round of financing. This investment will help IRLYNX accelerate and broaden product development, start the industrialization phase as well as expand its sales and marketing efforts. IRLYNX’s first product is an innovative sensor able to detect human activity, like true human presence and absence, counting, localization, movement analysis. With this €2M series A funding, IRLYNX will be able deliver to its customers its first development kits and new generation sensors at the end of this year.

Sébastien FABRE, IRLYNX CEO, says: “IRLYNX’s offering is well-timed with the increasing demand for solutions that can increase the level of information at an affordable price. This fundraising will accelerate our strategic plan, especially our time-to-market. We welcome DEMETER, PHITRUST and the others investors. For 18 months, we have been developing our savoir-faire and are recognized as experts in infrared sensors. Additionally supported by BPI France, we believe the company will continue to develop powerful infrared sensing solutions to fulfil new market requirements."

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Sony announces 5.1MP, 2/3-inch IMX264LLR/LQR and 3.2MP, 1/1.8-inch IMX265LLR/LQR sensors featuring 3.45um global shutter pixels. "This small-sized 3.45 μm pixel realizes higher sensitivity and lower noise than that of the existing 5.86 μm pixel products, and achieves high picture quality, high resolution and high-speed imaging without focal plane distortion... high-sensitivity pixel design technology and condensing process technology were used to increase the sensitivity of the newly developed 3.45 μm pixel, and realized high sensitivity exceeding that of the existing 5.86 μm product (1.1 times compared to the existing 5.86 μm product)"

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IMEC publishes an October update of its presentation on hyperspectral imaging:

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Forbes reports that Magic Leap, a Florida-based AR startup, is aiming to secure another round of funding of $1bn at the valuation of $4.5b. So far, the new company has not presented its products, but filed for 153 patents, mostly on display technology.

Like any other AR setup, Magic Leap should use a number of cameras to create a map of surrounding area where it embeds its virtual objects. The company's recent Youtube video is said to be "Shot directly through Magic Leap technology on 10/14/15, without the use of special effects or compositing."

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Some recent Qualcomm Snapdragon processors have dual ISPs so that manufacturers can add two cameras onto the back of their smartphones, one for each ISP. Qualcomm publishes a promotional video on its dual camera support:

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EETimes, Phys.org: University of Utah Electrical and Computer Engineering Associate Professor Rajesh Menon has developed a new camera color filter that is said to let in three times more light than Bayer CFA. The new approach is described in an open-access paper in OSA Optica Vol. 2, Issue 11, pp. 933-939 (2015): "Ultra-high-sensitivity color imaging via a transparent diffractive-filter array and computational optics" by Peng Wang and Rajesh Menon.

“If you think about it, this [Bayer CFA] is a very inefficient way to get color because you’re absorbing two thirds of the light coming in,” Menon says. “But this is how it’s been done since the 1970s. So for the last 40 years, not much has changed in this technology.”

Menon’s solution is to use a color filter that lets all light pass through to the camera sensor. He does this with a combination of software and hardware. It is a wafer of glass that has precisely-designed microscopic ridges etched on one side that bends the light in certain ways as it passes through and creates a series of color patterns or codes. Software then reads the codes to determine what colors they are.

Instead of just reading three colors, this new filter produces at least 25 new codes or colors that pass through the filter to reach the camera’s sensor, producing photos that are much more accurate and with nearly no digital grain.

“You get a lot more color information than a normal color camera. With a normal camera, you only see red, green or blue. We can do 25 or more,” Menon says. “It’s not only better under lowlight conditions but it’s a more accurate representation of color.” Ultimately, the new filter also can be cheaper to implement in the manufacturing process because it is simpler to build as opposed to current filters, which require three steps to produce a filter that reads red, blue and green light, Menon says.


Talking about small pixel results, the paper says: "As anticipated, the DFA, together with the regularization algorithm, works well for the 1.67μm sensor pixel except at the boundaries of abrupt color change, where crosstalk smears color accuracy. Scalar diffraction calculation estimates the lateral spread of the crosstalk (or spatial resolution) to be ∼13μm. This is approximately three image pixels in our configuration, since one DFA unit cell is 5μm×5μm.

However, in the areas of uniform color (areas #4 and 5), our reconstructions demonstrate negligible distortion and noise. The absolute error between reconstruction and true images averaged over the entire image space is well below 5%. For this object of 404×404 image pixels, it takes roughly 30s to complete reconstruction by regularization without implementing any parallel computation techniques on a Lenovo W540 laptop (Intel i7-4700MQ CPU at 2.40 GHz and 16.0 GB RAM) for simplicity."

Menon has since created a company, Lumos Imaging, to commercialize the new filter for use in smartphones and is now negotiating with several large electronics and camera companies to bring this technology to market. He says the first commercial products that use this filter could be out in three years.

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Mediatek Youtube technology presentation talks about its new next generation Imagiq ISP supporting the dual camera and depth mapping features, starting from time 13:15.

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ON Semi publishes its Q3 2015 earnings report. One can see that the image sensor business takes incrementally larger fraction of the total:


The company management says: "Revenue for our Image Sensor Group was approximately $189 million, up approximately 9 percent over the second quarter. ...Demand remains strong for our image sensor solutions driven by the increased adoption of rearview cameras and ADAS Safety Systems. ... During the third quarter, we secured design wins for our VGA Image Sensor to support the 2018 United States mandate for Rear View Cameras.

...a leading customer in the action sports camera market launched three new cameras using our image sensors.

...In the security market, sales of our image sensors grew by more than 20% quarter over quarter. We also saw strength in other industrial sub-segments, such as in machine vision for our CMOS and CCD image sensors."

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Toshiba PR on image sensor business withdrawal officially reveals its CIS sales data: "The CMOS sensor business, a part of System LSI business, recorded sales on the scale of approximately 30-billion yen (consolidated basis) in FY2014."

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PRNewswire: OmniVision announced the OV2718, a an 1080p30 CameraChip sensor for security cameras. The 1/3-inch OV2718 leverages OmniBSI-2 pixel and is said to deliver best-in-class low-light sensitivity. The 1/3-inch OV2718 can record 1080p30 video in HDR mode.

"Industry analysts predict a strong demand for image sensors with high quality 1080p HD video recording capabilities in mainstream commercial security systems. The OV2718, a sensor that offers such capabilities in a standard 1/3-inch format widely adopted in the industry, is designed to directly address that demand," said Chris Yiu, senior strategic marketing manager at OmniVision. "The OV2718 delivers best-in-class low-light sensitivity for 1080p security cameras. This sensitivity, paired with OmniVision's HDR technology, enables excellent scene reproduction even in challenging lighting conditions, which is essential for surveillance cameras."

The OV2718 is currently sampling, and is expected to enter volume production by the end of 2015.

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Yole Developpement continues to publish snippets of info from its 2015 Camera Module Industry report:

• The Compact Camera Module (CCM) market will more than double in the next five years, reaching $51B by 2020.
• Thanks to explosive growth, automotive will soon be the second-largest application.
• The CCM industry is quickly adapting to changing market needs.
• Critical technology shifts (3D, Computional, Motion, Infrared) are ahead of us, with the camera module ultimately becoming the hub for multi-sensing.

"Access to technology is key in the CCM industry. At the image sensor level, access to Sony’s state-of-the-art 3D stacked sensors is a prerequisite for high-end, high-resolution modules. The integration of Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF) is another key technology feature. Most CMOS Image Sensors (CIS) vendors are quickly closing the technology gap with Sony, but as the investments get larger and larger only the biggest companies will be able to compete.

One key on-going technology shift for high-end CCM is the integration of Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) functionality. This critical feature is mainly provided by Korean and Japanese Voice Coil Motors (VCM) manufacturers. The high demand for VCM technology means stronger negotiating power for players with access to it."

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SeekingAlpha publishes the transcript of STMicro Q3 2015 earnings call. The CEO Carlo Bozotti says: "Digital Product Group revenues totaled $230 million, an increase of $23 million on a sequential basis, driven by Imaging. In our specialized imaging business, we continued to expand our Time-of-Flight photonic sensors business in Asia, with now more than 20 phone models available from several leading Asian smartphone manufacturers. ...unfortunately I cannot give you too many details because it is a very important line for us. And I would – what I can say is that, there is a good momentum. It's a new area and I think it's a good opportunity for the future."

"Imaging, as you know, we have already decided that we are out now. This is another, let's say, actions that we took here is to exit from the commodity camera module and in Q4, basically, the sales zero. Here, it's very special products for imaging with a lot of potential. So, this is an important area for us."

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Sony reports its quarterly results: "In the Devices segment, sales increased significantly mainly due to an increase in sales of image sensors for mobile devices and the impact of foreign exchange rates."

However, the Devices business forecast for the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2016 has been adjusted down: "Sales are expected to be lower than the July forecast mainly due to a decrease in sales of lithium-ion polymer batteries and the impact of a temporary decrease in image sensor production due to a production equipment problem. Although this production equipment problem has been remedied, sales are expected to decrease in the second half of the current fiscal year as well. The forecast for operating income remains unchanged from the July forecast mainly due to the above-mentioned decrease in sales being offset mainly by an increase in productivity and yield in the image sensor business as well as a reduction in costs."

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Sony STARVIS page presents its progress in sensitivity improvements over the years:


The company's STARVIS 2015 short catalog lists 4 image sensor products under this name.

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PRNewswire: OmniVision announces mass production of OV10823, a 4K, 30fps video sensor for security and surveillance systems, first announced in April 2015. The 1/2.6-inch CameraChip sensor utilizes 1.4um OmniBSI-2 pixel.

"In terms of image processing, bandwidth, and playback capabilities, we view the security market as ready to take the leap into ultra-high resolution 4K video. Up to this point, a critical missing component has been a high performance image sensor that can deliver the required image quality and video specifications. The OV10823 is designed to provide exactly that capability," said Chris Yiu, senior product marketing manager at OmniVision. "The OV10823 is a no-compromise image sensor that can bring exceptional image quality. In conjunction with our partners' 'intelligent' algorithms, this new sensor can form a key part of new security systems with advanced features such as video analytics and automatic detection and tracking."

The OV10823 offers a zero-degree CRA and CSP package. The sensor is currently in volume production.

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