Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

China Galaxy International comes with a wide collection of market data, primarily about Apple camera module supplier Cowell and the camera module industry in general:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

gestigon announces that they provide the gesture control software used in Audi’s booth at the CES ASIA in Shanghai. The first result of this cooperation is to, initially, provide an unique user experience for the rear seat passengers of Audi’s luxury car models enabling the user interaction with the multimedia device in front of them.

Moritz von Grotthuss, CEO of gestigon, says, “we are excited to have won AUDI AG as a partner to develop gesture control solutions for automotive. The application for the rear passengers is a first, appealing step into a multitude of use cases based on ‘active control’ to enable new, innovative and easy-to-use functionalities. With Audi’s unique positioning as one of the leading global premium manufacturers we have found a partner that shares our vision and excitement in regard of skeleton tracking- and gesture control for automotive in their broadest sense.”

Michael Schlittenbauer, Developer at AUDI AG confirms, „gestigon was able to provide a customized software solution for our targeted use case in the rear of the cabin. We are working on a number of concepts to integrate gesture control into our models and are looking forward to continue to explore the technology as well as use cases to enable a unique driving experience to our customers.”

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Sony patent application US20150129943 "Solid-state imaging device, method of manufacturing a solid-state imaging device, and electronic apparatus" by Nanako Kato and Toshifumi Wakano, presents a stacked global shutter pixel where the storage diode is shielded from the backside illumination:

Sony stacked GS pixel

Sony's idea looks quite similar to the one presented by Apple in US20150035028 application:

Apple stacked GS pixel

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

IC Insights posts its updated list of top 20 semiconductor companies. This time, Sharp has entered the list as #19. IC Insight writes: "Although Sharp as a whole is having a difficult time, its semiconductor group, which represents only about 14% of the company’s corporate sales, posted a whopping 62% growth rate (an 88% increase in yen), the best 1Q15 sales increase of any top-20 semiconductor supplier. This sales surge was almost entirely due to the company’s success in the CMOS image sensor market."


Update: Sharp's medium term management plan dated by May 14, 2015, reveals quite ambitious plans over the next few years:


The company notes: "Sharp has the leading share in the industry for smartphone camera devices, but since specific customers weight a large proportion of our business, we will aggressively work to expand our sales to new customers, and target 3 times the net sales of Fiscal 2014 by Fiscal 2017."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Invisage has removed all its nice videos from Youtube. There is only one left in the Invisage Tube channel:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Toshiba updates its popular explanations of image sensor work it started in 2013. The new CMOS Image Circus series compares image sensor with human eye, talk about image sensor features and more:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

PMD announces pico flexx, a version of pico ToF camera optimized for augmented and virtual reality devices, featuring higher speed, longer distance and lower power:


PMD also publishes a Youtube demo of the new camera:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

IHS publishes its analysts opinions on implications of Omnivision acquisition by Chinese investment companies. Few quotes:

"One of the greatest concerns regarding China-backed Hua Capital Management Co. Ltd.’s proposed acquisition of OmniVision Technologies Inc. is that it would give OmniVision an unfair advantage over other image-sensor vendors, with Chinese firms favoring Omnivision products over others. But, according to IHS, this scenario is unlikely to play out.

...the vast majority of OmniVision’s current business is already in China. O’Rourke says about 75% of OmniVision’s 2014 revenues came from China-based companies.

“In this situation, there’s not a great deal of room left for OmniVision’s growth in China," O’Rourke says. "Thus, the question of Chinese companies or the Chinese government favoring it may be irrelevant.”

...the funding groups bought OmniVision mainly for a “capital operation” and will have the company listed in the China stock market to gain a sizable return.

Wang says he believes OmniVision will invest heavily in the near term—including spending more on R&D to develop high-end products—in order to help the company catch up with image sensor heavyweights Sony and Samsung."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Sony announces 5.07MP 2/3-inch IMX250LLR/LQR and 3.2MP 1/1.8-inch IMX252LLR/LQR sensors featuring a new generation global shutter pixel. Sony says that the new 3.45um pixels are industry's smallest global shutter pixels for industrial applications. The pixels feature improved sensitivity, 1.1 times over the company's previous generation of 5.86 µm pixels. In addition, EXview HAD CCD technology is said to increases sensitivity in NIR (see the bigger 800 x 670 pictures on Sony site):


The sensors are fairly fast, slightly faster than the previous generation IMX174:


Sony also publishes a Youtube video showing a global shutter advantage:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

PRNewswire: Pelican Imaging announces that Mark Fulks has joined the company as COO to lead engineering and product development for Pelican's depth-sensing array solutions. Prior to joining Pelican, Fulks led Nokia's product and engineering teams that created Nokia's augmented reality product, Nokia City Lens, and led the core development teams at Sun Microsystems for Java ME (J2ME). He began his career as an embedded systems software engineer, after earning his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science with a minor in Physics from Sonoma State University. Fulks holds several patents related to augmented reality interfaces and displays.

"Pelican Imaging is uniquely positioned to achieve success across multiple growth markets. I'm very excited to join as COO, leading the engineering and product development teams to bring this disruptive 3D imaging technology to consumers," said Fulks.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

e2v reports preliminary results for its fiscal year ended on March 31, 2015. For the imaging business, the report states:


Steve Blair, e2v CEO, comments on the last year's Anafocus acquisition "We are pleased with the performance of AnaFocus since its acquisition in September and it has already been successfully integrated. Overall, we have delivered a good performance, including a strong finish to the year, in what remained challenging markets."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

PRNewswire: OmniVision and Silicon Line GmbH announced a collaboration to bring high-speed image and video data transfer technology to applications that are noise-sensitive and that require longer, thinner and lighter cables. This collaboration will focus on 1080p30 video transfer over 2-lane 1Gbps MIPI for OmniVision's OV5693 sensor, as well as other MIPI D-PHY 1.1, 1.2, 2.0 and MIPI C-PHY-based imaging solutions.

"We believe that Silicon Line's approach to high-speed data transfer, and the inherent benefits that its optical link technology brings to our mutual target markets, can help overcome many technical challenges faced by product engineers today," said Tehzeeb Gunja, senior marketing and business development manager at OmniVision. "The ability to affordably and power-efficiently transfer large amounts of uncompressed video data over long distances carries a tremendous potential for positive impact on a number of application areas."

"As OmniVision extends its portfolio with higher resolution and higher frame rate image sensors, the required data rate for transporting the image increases dramatically," said Ian Jackson, senior manager sales and marketing at Silicon Line. "A single optical fiber can transport up to 25 Gbps of data. This has obvious benefits in terms of size and weight reductions, enabling smaller and lighter industrial designs for space-constrained applications like tablets and notebooks. Another benefit of optical fiber is zero susceptibility to electromagnetic interference, which enables a noise free picture. Lastly, optical technology can transport high-speed image data over many meters whereas a traditional electrical connection is limited to 10 or 20 cm, making optical technology well-suited for applications such as automotive, medical and security imaging systems." (Actually, a single optical fiber transmits 100Gbps since 2012 in commercial products, and, this year, 200Gbps would be probably commercialized - ISW.)

3DInCites nominates OmniVision’s 23.8MP OV23850 PureCel stacked sensor for 3D Excellence Award. OV23850 "gives 3D manufacturing visibility across numerous application areas, including automotive, medical, mobile devices, and wearables."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Shenzhen, China-based Orbbec starts to accept pre-orders for its structured light 3D cameras: a longer range Astra, and a shorter range Astra S. Both Astra cameras are supposed to be compatible with discontinued after acquisition by Apple Primesense cameras and its NUI middleware:


Orbbec comes up with a series of comparison videos against Primesense, Kinect-1 and Kinect-2 cameras.

Thanks to HJ for the pointer.

Boulder, CO-based Chiaro Technologies presents its 3D sensing technology based on patented Symbolic Light. Chiaro's camera consists of a sensor head and a decoding API for either a PC host or an embedded system. The efficient 3D decoding improves frame-rate while leaving a room for application. Cloudburst is designed with machine vision in mind.


Chiaro camera is said to excel in building 3D maps of reflective objects, such as metallic ones:

Two coins and a machined part on a black-and-white checker pattern. Under low lights in a 12-bit image (a), specular reflections saturate the camera while the checker pattern remains dim. Typical 3D capture (b) misses regions of the 3D point cloud. Chiaro’s XDI-3D system with HDR (c) can capture 3D images of this scene, capturing everything from the black squares to the shiny surfaces of coins, all under regular ambient lighting conditions.

Meanwhile, German Optassyst drives an ISO initiative "Fair Datasheet" to define a standard way to write datasheets for 3D depth cameras, so that customers can easily compare their performance and merits. The proposed ISO standard definitions mainly target machine vision and industrial 3D cameras.


Thanks to TL for the link!

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Fujitsu publishes few Youtube videos on its newly developed gaze tracking technology. The first one shows a short-range "compact tracker:"



The second video shows a solution for a long-range gaze tracking:



The third video talks about possible applications and markets for the gaze tracking:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

The Guardian: Fujitsu Arrows NX F-04G smartphone sold by Japan’s NTT Docomo, uses an infrared LED and a special camera to identify a user by snapping a picture of the iris of his eye. The camera was first presented and awarded at MWC 2015. Most implementations of iris-recognition systems are said to work at a distances of 10cm, while Fujitsu’s system can operate at a standard smartphone operating distance. FujitsuMobile shows how it works:



WSJ reports that ZTE too presented eye recognition feature in its new Grand S3 phone at MWC 2015, although it uses a different approach licensed from EyeVerify. It works by imaging the unique vein patterns in the whites of the eye using the Grand S3’s front facing camera:



GizmoChina: ViewSonic too announced its plans on iris recognition in smartphone, but it's not clear if it has reached the market yet.

Meanwhile, Forbes discusses the hacks to fool the iris recognition cameras:

“We have managed to fool a commercial system with a print out down to an iris diameter of 75 pixels,” says security researcher Jan “Starbug” Krissler. “I did tests with different people and can say that an iris image with a diameter down to 75 pixel worked on our tests.” The print out had to have a resolution of 1200 dpi too, though it’s easy to find printers able to hit that specification today, and ideally at least 75 per cent of the iris was visible.

Unlike the fingerprint attack, where it was necessary to create a proper clone, all that he needed in his iris recognition hacks was the print out, the researcher claims. “It’s nothing more. I punched a hole in the middle, but only for orientation. It’s not needed,” Starbug added.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Himax quarterly earnings report updates on the company's image sensor business:

"Himax’s CMOS image sensors also experienced a down quarter since 4G smartphone adoption in China remained weak. The lack of smartphone replacement demand hurt the shipments of Himax’s high end product offerings. The Company is optimistic of the possibility of securing significant design-wins in the second half of the year with its 8-megapixel and 13-megapixel sensors."

From the company's May 2015 presentation:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Adimec announces its participation in two European projects for advancing CMOS image sensor technology: CISTERN and EXIST. Both programs begin in April/May 2015 and will be completed in 2018.

The main objective of CISTERN, which is an acronym for CMOS Image Sensor Technologies’ Readiness for Next generation of applications. The other partners in this project are Grass Valley (project leader), Thales Angenieux, SoftKinetic, Delft University of Technology, University of Burgundy. CISTERN is a part of CATRENE Program and is aimed to:

• To develop CMOS imager sensors with improved performance on spatial resolution, temporal resolution, higher bit depths, lower noise, wider color gamut, higher quantum efficiency (not necessarily all combined for each sensor) and additional, smart functionality in the pixels. The consortium will develop imager sensors in the categories UHDTV, Time-of-Flight and hyper- and multi-spectral, for the application areas broadcast, entertainment, and security.
• To develop real time image processing techniques needed to improve the quality of the digital output signal of the sensor demonstrators.
• To develop and demonstrate the capability to produce multispectral imagers by hybridization of multispectral filter arrays on top of CMOS sensor.
• To demonstrate the improved performance of the CMOS imagers combined with related processing in a number of demonstrators.
• To develop Ultra High resolution, widely opened, sensor adapted zoom lenses (2/3’’ format, 4K resolution) for broadcast and security applications/markets.
• To optimize lens design in term of performance/cost/weight/camera integration for integral imaging chains.
• To develop and demonstrate an integrated Camera Lens Assembly for security applications that offers UHDTV performance with Size and Weight of an HDTV solution.
• To start in-house CMOS image sensor development in Grass Valley.

The EXIST (EXtended Imaging Sensor Technologies) consortium will investigate and develop innovative new technologies for image sensors. The EXIST team consists of R&D institutes advanced in image sensor technologies, image sensor designs and video processing (IMEC, Fraunhofer IMS, Le2i, TNO, iMinds and TU Delft) and fabless design houses, semiconductor manufacturer (Sofradir) and system integrators (CMOSIS, Grass Valley, Softkinetic, Thales Angenieux, Adimec, Silios, Sofradir, Focal, and Quest). The objectives of this program are investigate and develop innovative new technologies for image sensors needed in the next plus one (N+2) generation of several application domains. The image sensor research will focus on enhancing and extending the capabilities of current CMOS imaging devices:

• New design (architectures) and process technology (e.g. 3D stacking) for better pixels (lower noise, higher dynamic range, higher quantum efficiency, new functionality in the pixel) and more pixels at higher speed (higher spatial and temporal resolutions, higher bit depth), time-of-flight pixels, local (on-chip) processing
• Extended sensitivity and functionality of the pixels: extension into infrared, filters for hyperspectral and multispectral imaging, better colour filters for a wider colour gamut, and FabryPérot Interference cells
• Increasing the optical, analog and data imaging pipelines to enable high frame rates, better memory management, etc.

After developing the related technologies, six prototype image sensors will be designed:

• two high resolution, high frame rate image sensors with 32Mpixels or more;
• two Time of Flight image sensors;
• one 3D stacked image sensor.
• one integrated high performance hyperspectral image sensor

Next to these image sensor designs, the team will make a number of filter designs for integration on top of above mentioned and commercially available image sensors:

• Multispectral filters for MWIR
• Hyperspectral filters for NIR-passband and NIR-cutoff filters;
• HSI filters and BSI imager for VISNIR range;

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

DigInfo TV publishes a video on Panasonic image sensor optical commonication technology:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

PRNewswire: CogniVue, which has licensed its APEX Image Cognition Processor (ICP) technology to Freescale, announced that its new APEX Processing Core - Opus - is at the center of the intense battle for ADAS market share as challengers to Mobileye, the current market share leader, line up to capture business for next-generation ADAS systems. Opus is said to have 10x performance increase over the current G2-APEX.

"CogniVue has been anticipating this ADAS market showdown and we are ready to equip competitors to Mobileye with the performance and cost advantages they need to capture new ADAS opportunities," said Simon Morris, CEO of CogniVue. "We have the innovation, technology and engagement with dominant players in the automotive market and key SoC suppliers to be a key enabler of next-generation ADAS and autonomous driving."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

ST has held a 2015 Analyst Day today. The company says it's exploring options to cut losses at its Digital Product Group (DPG), a division that makes image sensors among other products. "This problem needs to be fixed and we will fix it," says CEO Carlo Bozotti (SeekingAlpha).

Meanwhile, DPG presentation says that ST imaging business is focusing on specialized image sensors and proximity sensors, while winding down commodity imaging products:


In spite of the option explorations, the manufacturing presentation talks about imaging and the 3D roadmap:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Pixart reports Q1 2015 results:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

PR Newswire: ZHANGJIAGANG, Jiangsu, China-based MultiDimension Technology (MDT), a supplier of Tunneling Magnetoresistance (TMR) sensors, announces the MIS63xx TMR magnetic image sensors. They are said to be the world’s first TMR magnetic sensors for magnetic image scanning with high-resolution in 50DPI. They are designed for financial anti-counterfeit appliances in banknote sorters, ATM, and vending machines. They are also ideally suited for high-resolution magnetic image scanning in non-destructive testing applications.

MDT supplies TMR magnetic sensor wafers or bare dice.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Taiwan LIPS-HCI startup posts one more Youtube demo of its ToF camera module. The video has a spec of its camera:



Other than ToF, LIPS-HCI also publishes demos of its RGB-IR and 2x2 array camera modules that generate 3D depth maps.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Sony annual report for its FY2014, ended on March 31, 2015, states that its image sensor capex will reach 210 billion Yen in FY2015, about 4.8 times higher than in FY2014:


The same data is included in its updated Semiconductor business flyer, dated by April 30, 2015:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

PRWeb: Anitoa Systems, a Palo Alto startup established in 2011, partnering with Zhejiang University of China, has demonstrated a handheld real time quantitative-polymerase-chain-reaction system (qPCR) using Anitoa's ultra-low-light CMOS bio-optical sensor. Anitoa’s ULS24 ultra-low light CMOS bio-optical sensor is said to be the first commercially available CMOS sensor that has the needed sensitivity to replace photon multiplier tubes and cooled-CCDs in a wide range of medical and scientific instruments. The ultra-low light sensitivity (3e-6 lux) of Anitoa’s CMOS sensor is crucial for achieving good SNR in imaging molecular interactions based on fluorescent or chemiluminescence signaling principle. “We are very pleased to see the test results coming back from partner hospital showing the effectiveness of detecting infectious pathogens. This not only validates the CMOS bio-optical sensor’s ultra-low-light sensitivity, but also its applicability to real world disease diagnostics”, said Anitoa CEO Zhimin Ding.

ULS24 is built on 0.18um CMOS process at "a world-leader specialty semiconductor foundry."

Anitoa’s Intelligent Dark-current Management architecture. It starts with high responsivity photodiodes. The readout circuit performs multimodal sensing to capture signal and noise information, the A/D and digital signal processor is said to take advantage of the multi-modal information to achieve better noise cancellation.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

2015 International Image Sensor Workshop (IISW) to be held on June 8-11, 2015 in Vaals, The Netherlands, publishes its program. There is quite a lot of interesting papers. Just to name a few of the broader public interest:

Sony and Canon present image sensor with phase detection autofocus in ALL pixels:

A Low Noise and High Sensitivity Image Sensor with Imaging and Phase-Difference Detection AF in All Pixels
M.Kobayashi, M.Johnson, Y.Wada, H.Tsuboi, J.Iwata, T.Ono, H.Takada, K.Togo, Y.Arishima, T.Kishi, A.Okita, H.Takahashi, T.Ichikawa
Canon Inc., Japan

A 4M pixel full-PDAF CMOS image sensor with 1.58μm 2X1 On-Chip Micro-Split-Lens technology
Sozo Yokogawa, Isao Hirota, Isao Ohdaira, Masao Matsumura, Atsushi Morimitsu, Hiroaki Takahashi, Toshio Yamazaki, Hideki Oyaizu, Yalcin Incesu, Muhammad Atif, Yoshikazu Nitta
Sony Japan and Germany

Omnivision, Sony and Olympus present the updates on their latest stacked sensor work:

Stack Chip Technology: A New Direction for CMOS Imagers
V.C. Venezia, H. Rhodes, C. Shih, W.Z. Yang, and B. Zhang
OmniVision, USA

A 3D stacked CMOS image sensor with 16Mpixel global-shutter mode using 4 million interconnections
Toru Kondo, Yoshiaki Takemoto, Kenji Kobayashi, Mitsuhiro Tsukimura, Naohiro Takazawa, Hideki Kato, Shunsuke Suzuki, Jun Aoki, Haruhisa Saito, Yuichi Gomi, Seisuke Matsuda and Yoshitaka Tadaki
Olympus Corp., Japan

A 1/1.7-inch 20Mpixel Back-illuminated Stacked CMOS Image Sensor with parallel multiple sampling
Hayato Wakabayashi, Atsushi Suzuki, Nobutaka Shimamura, Toshiki Kainuma, Kensuke Koiso, Atsushi Masagaki, Yoichi Yagasaki, Shigeru Gonoi, Masatoshi Mizuno, Tatsuya Sugioka, Takafumi Morikawa, Yoshiaki Inada
Sony, Japan

Qualcomm and TSMC present new CFA ideas:

New Color Filter Patterns and Demosaic for Sub-micron Pixel Arrays
Biay-Cheng Hseih, Hasib Siddiqui, Todor Gerogiev, Kalin Atanassov, Sergio Goma, and
HY Cheng, JJ Sze, HY Chou, Calvin Chao, SG Wuu
Qualcomm Inc., USA
TSMC, Taiwan

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Basler publishes a number of image sensors and camera tutorials under the name of "Vision Campus." One of them talks about CMOS sensors superiority over CCDs:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Invisage launches an updated web site featuring a new Technology page:

Invisage sensor cross-section. Note, there is no microlens.

The technology page also introduces Dynamic Zoom feature - a sort of binning in continuous photoconductive film. Nice idea. I hope they find a way to combine it with CFA:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Imatest publishes a Youtube video promoting its Image Sensor Edition testing environment:

Go to the original article...