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Business Wire: Ambarella introduces H1 camera SoC for sports and quadcopter cameras (flying cameras). H1 supports 4K H.264 video encoding at 60fps and 4K H.265/HEVC standard at up to 30fps. H1 features a new generation of ISP with HDR processing, EIS, and a hardware de-warping engine supporting 360-degree panoramic cameras. In addition to 4K Ultra HD encoding, it also supports 1440p (QHD) video at 120 frames per second and 1080p video at 240 frames per second, for smooth slow-motion playback.

“The adoption of 4K Ultra HD video has been accelerating across consumer electronics markets,” said Fermi Wang, President and CEO of Ambarella. “The Ambarella H1 will enable a new generation of sports and flying cameras with high frame rate Ultra HD video, bringing professional-quality film making to the consumer.”

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AAC Technologies and Pelican Imaging announce that AAC Technologies is the chosen lens supplier for Pelican’s latest array camera module. The array camera, manufactured by Jabil, Inc., is slated for inclusion in an upcoming reference design that allows very accurate near-field and far-field depth acquisition. Pelican’s unique, flexible array camera solution provides depth when used as a standalone camera, or when used as a depth sensor in conjunction with a traditional camera.

Jack Duan, COO at AAC Technologies, noted, “We foresee strong demand for high-quality array lenses in the next wave of mobile devices. AAC Technologies is quite pleased to be partnering with Pelican Imaging on their latest array camera module as this offers AAC a great opportunity to be at the forefront of innovation in mobile imaging.”

Pelican Imaging and Jabil Circuit, Inc., announce that the companies are collaborating to produce a high-resolution array camera module for inclusion in a reference design that allows accurate depth acquisition. The new Jabil camera module, based on Pelican’s array camera architecture, is expected to be broadly available in Q2 2015.

Irvin Stein, Business Unit Director of Jabil’s Embedded Camera Group, noted “We believe that array cameras are a key segment of the embedded camera market and will experience significant growth…we’re looking forward to fulfilling the demand for this from Jabil’s customers worldwide.”

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PR Newswire: OmniVision announces that the world's first 100% wireless HD security camera developed by NETGEAR will be using OmniVision's video recording and processing chipset. "By using OmniVision's OV9712 image sensor and OV788 video processor, the Arlo camera delivers crystal clear HD image quality, power efficiency and superior 'instant on' video recording. OmniVision's leadership in advanced digital imaging solutions makes them a natural fit for NETGEAR's smart home innovations," said Erich Volkert, senior director of product management for NETGEAR.

PR Newswire: OmniVision and Ring, producer of the battery-operated, wireless, video doorbell, announce that OmniVision's low-power consumption OV9712 image sensor and OV788 video processor are used for HD video recording and streaming in the new Ring Video Doorbell. The OV788's ultra-low power consumption also helps extend Ring's battery life to up to 14 months. "Through OmniVision's three-year partnership with Ring, we've witnessed how Ring has taken bold steps to create the revolutionary device you see today," said Sam Huang, VP of design engineering at OmniVision. "We greatly value our relationship with Ring, and pride ourselves in being the 'eyes' for products that truly redefine their categories."

PR Newswire: OmniVision announces that it is collaborating with Inuitive Ltd. to develop a reference design for building 3D imaging modules for consumer electronics. OmniVision's family of computer vision-optimized sensors and Inuitive's NU3000 ASIC, a 3D imaging and computer vision processor, are capable of bringing a host of advanced features for a wide range of consumer devices, including smartphones, tablets, notebooks, smart TVs, and wearable devices.

"We are proud to partner with OmniVision to develop a new line of 3D cameras that enable advanced features such as augmented reality, 3D scanning, post processing photography, natural user interface and more," said Shlomo Gadot, co-founder & CEO at Inuitive. "In our view, the levels of performance and flexibility that these solutions offer make them among the most competitive on the market for OEMs looking to integrate 3D capabilities with their products." The new line of 3D cameras will utilize OmniVision's OV7251 global shutter image sensor or the quad high definition OV4688 image sensor.

Inuitive Camera

Inuitive ASIC

PR Newswire: OmniVision announces the immediate availability of an OpenCL optimized imaging algorithm library ideally suited for ARM Mali GPUs. The library includes advanced imaging features such as 3D noise suppression, chroma noise reduction, de-fringe and de-haze and is targeted at smartphones, tablets and notebooks.

"Through our close collaboration with ARM, we have developed imaging solutions that make effective use of the heterogeneous architecture of next generation application processors containing GPU Compute capable GPUs such as the ARM Mali GPU family," said Johnson Shan, VP of Software Algorithm Engineering at OmniVision. "The new algorithm library dramatically reduces execution time and power consumption, resulting in an enhanced user experience and extended battery life."

Update: PR Newswire: OmniVision announces that its OV7251 global shutter image sensor has been selected by Mantis Vision as one of the sensors intended for its next-generation 3D camera reference design, as part of its MV4D technology platform for mobile devices. OmniVision's OV7251, a VGA image sensor with global shutter capabilities, will facilitate accurate 3D imaging and content creation for the MV4D technology platform.

"By developing our 3D mobile camera using OmniVision's OV7251 sensor, Mantis Vision's MV4D technology platform has taken a leap forward in meeting the demands of our partners with daylight operability, sub-mm data accuracies, and slim form-factor compatibility," said Gur Arie Bittan, CTO of Mantis Vision. "With OmniVision's support, we expect the new camera reference design to be available for mobile OEM's in mid-2015."

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Business Wire: – ON Semiconductor (Aptina) has successfully characterized and demonstrated its first fully-functional stacked CMOS sensor featuring a smaller die footprint, higher pixel performance and better power consumption compared to traditional monolithic non-stacked designs. The technology has been successfully implemented and characterized on a test chip with 1.1µm pixels and will be introduced in a product later this year.

“3D stacking technology is an exciting breakthrough that enhances our ability to optimize ON Semiconductor’s future sensors,” said Sandor Barna, VP of Technology for ON Semiconductor’s Image Sensor Group. “This technology provides manufacturing and design flexibility to ensure continued performance leadership across our entire sensor product portfolio.”

Business Wire: On Semiconductor (Aptina) announces 13MP/30fps AR1335 sensor based on advanced 1.1µm pixel featuring a dramatic increase in QE and linear full well capacity. On Semi's CFA processing is sait to have increased the sensitivity by nearly 20% compared to the previous generation. The sensor delivers 4K video and Cinema formats at 30fps and 1080P at 60fps. The high 32-degree CRA supports low z-height applications for smartphones.

“The AR1335 image sensor comes from an intersection of engineering innovation and customer focus,” said Shung Chieh, VP of Consumer Imaging for ON Semiconductor’s Image Sensor Group. “Technology improvements, coupled with smart design and optimized production processes, result in a cost effective solution for smartphone manufactures who wish to deliver a full, rich camera experience in their devices.”

The AR1335 is in mass production in die format and has been designed into several smartphone models with availability in leading phones expected by Q2 2015.

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ULIS publishes a Youtube video showing various applications for its IR cameras:

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Pelican Imaging' Youtube video says that depth is a future of imaging:

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Softkinetic publishes a vice Youtube video on 3D camera use cases in everyday life:

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MIT has published a PhD thesis "Decoupling Algorithms from the Organization of Computation for High Performance Image Processing" by Jonathan Ragan-Kelley devoted mainly to Halide language and compiler. The thesis applies Halide for optimization of trade-offs between parallelism, locality, and the total amount of computation. One of the basic statements is that moving data in a processing system consumes the major power:

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Delft University publishes IEDM 2014 review paper "Toward 1Gfps: Evolution of Ultra-high-speed Image Sensors -ISIS, BSI, Multi-Collection Gates, and 3D-stacking" by T. G. Etoh, V. T. S. Dao, K. Shimonomura, E. Charbon, C. Zhang, Y. Kamakura, and T. Matsuoka. The new paper is an extended and updated version of the previously published open-access review.

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Gestigon, a provider of 3D depth map-based software for skeleton tracking and gesture control for consumer and automotive markets, is going to present its automotive gesture control concepts at CES next week. The company's Youtube video shows some of the ideas:

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Omnivision patent application US20140374862 "CMOS image sensor with integrated silicon color filters" by Chiaying Liu, Keh-chiang Ku, Dyson Hsinchih Tai, and Wuzhang Yang presents a silicon color filter 170, 172 combined with SiO2 microlens 155:

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The post has been removed on request.

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Trillion Sensors Summit held on Nov. 12-13, 2014 in San Diego, publishes Rambus presentation "Lensless Computational Image Sensors as a Foundation for New Opportunities in Biotech" by David Stork. Few slides out of 32:


CEA-Leti too presented its lens-free biomedical imaging, although little details on the operating principle were given.

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BBC reports that a member of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) hacker network, Jan Krissler, has been able to replicate the fingerprint of German defense minister Ursula von der Leyen using pictures taken with a "standard photo camera". Krissler had no physical print from Ms von der Leyen. He only had obtained a close-up photo of Ms von der Leyen's thumb and had also used other pictures taken at different angles during a press event that the minister had spoken at in October.

A Youtube video (in German) presents the idea:

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CBInsights tracking VC investments registers reduced interest in mobile imaging opportunities. Whereas in Q2 2012 mobile video and photo were the major investment areas, they have disappeared from the Q3 2014 chart:

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Bruker publishes a IMEC's Peter De Wolf presentation of the Scanning Surface Resistance Microscope (SSRM) useful for TCAD tools calibration, among many other things:

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Shizuoka University, Japan published a PhD Thesis "A Study on Noise Reduction in CMOS Image Sensors using High-Gain Front-end Readout Circuits" by Mohd Amrallah bin Mustafa, dated by Aug. 2013. The thesis goes through a quick overview of the major noise sources, including RTN:


Then, thesis goes through the ways to reduce the noise, like correlated multiple sampling (CMS), high gain ADC combined with PGA, and Histogram-based RTN Suppression and Averaging (HRS):


Then, a pixel with two amplifiers is proposed, where a selection circuit chooses the least noisy amplifier out of the two:

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Toshiba Teli's presentation at Vision Show 2014 reveals details of the new Sony Pregius image sensors with 3.45um global shutter pixels:


Thanks to CM for the pointer!

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Intel has shown its front and rear RealSense cameras in its IDF 2014 presentation:


As another Intel presentation from April 2014 tells, the company invests quite a lot into 3D vision development:

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In continuation to the previous post, JS commented that nanoLambda has a similar to Hamamatsu small size spectrometer. NanoLambda's presentation at last year's Trillion Sensors Summit gives some background about the company, its product and applications:


Update: There is a newer nanoLambda presentation from Nov. 2014 build mostly around the emerging consumer applications. The presentation also shows the small spectrometers competition:

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Hamamatsu announces C12666MA, a new compact and cost-effective spectrometer for consumer applications:


The company says: "There is a trade-off relation between the spectrometer size and performance characteristics. As the size becomes smaller, the resolution deteriorates and the performance also declines. Our microspectrometer employs a method that diffracts the light after internally reflecting it one time, and is designed to exhibit the highest possible performance that achieves both satisfactory size and performance characteristics in this type of spectrometer."

"a further step forward was needed in both size and price in order to have them accepted for widespread use in the consumer electronics market... Small spectrometers can be built into compact devices. For example, we can expect to see new applications linked to smartphones or medical devices used at home."


The only company I've heard of working on consumer spectrometer products is Consumer Physics, completed its Kickstarter campaign in May 2014:

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As Rob pointed in comments, there is a nice Andor webinar comparing trade-offs in EMCCD and sCMOS camera design:

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Transparency Market Research predicts that the global camera module market will grow from a net worth of nearly $12.00 billion in 2012 to $43.06 billion by the end of 2019, growing at a CAGR of nearly 19.7% between 2013 and 2019. Rising demands for CMOS camera modules and robust expansion of the market in Asia-Pacific countries such as India, China, Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore are supporting growth of the market.

The global camera module market is highly fragmented with market players competing hard to acquire significant market shares. Major businesses operating in the global camera modules’ marketplace include SEMCO, Liteon Chicony, Toshiba, STMicro, LG-Innotek, Primax, Sharp, Foxconn, Sunny, Samsung Fiberoptic, BYD, Vista Point, Cowell, Truly, and KMOT.

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Dutch PC Magazine reports that Netherlands is the first country where Intel RealSense 3D camera-equipped computers have become available on the market. Only two products featuring RealSense technology have reached the shops so far. Asus N551JQ Ultrabook offers the 3D camera as an option:


The second product is Lenovo B50-30 All-in-one PC, too offering RealSense camera and applications as an option.

The RealSense hardware has a visible camera, an IR camera, and a laser projector. The working distance is said to be 30-50cm.


Dutch Hardware.info site shows the first RealSense products and their camera:

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Alexima's patent application US20140367552 "Image sensors, methods, and pixels with tri-level biased transfer gates" by Jaroslav Hynecek and Alexander Krymski proposes a global shutter "pixel with a transfer gate that is controllable among at least three biasing conditions, including a first biasing condition in which electrons are transferable from a photodiode to a potential well under the transfer gate, a second biasing condition in which the electrons are confined in the potential well under the transfer gate, and a third biasing condition in which the electrons are transferable out of the potential well under the transfer gate." The pixel cross-section and its band diagram in all 3 modes is shown below:

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Dual Aperture International (DAI) has raised $5.7M in Series A funding led by Value Invest Korea (VIK), based in Seoul, South Korea. eWBM, a licensee of DAI’s technology, also participated in the round.

Cheol Lee, CEO of VIK says, “In the past few years, many companies have tried to enable low-cost and low-power 3-D image capture, depth estimation and gesture tracking. We think it’s time to approach the problem anew. We see Dual Aperture’s technology as a game changer and with the engineering resources and world class engineers of CISS, we see an opportunity for Dual Aperture International to disrupt the imaging business in mobile and beyond.”

Dual Aperture's technology and alliances have been covered here, here and here.

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Rice University: Sidong Lei, a graduate student in the Rice lab of materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan, synthesized a single-layer matrix of copper, indium and selenium atoms (CIS). Lei also built a prototype three-pixel CCD to prove the material’s ability to capture an image:


The device traps electrons formed when light hits the material and holds them until released for storage, Lei said. CIS pixels are highly sensitive to light because the trapped electrons dissipate so slowly, said Robert Vajtai, a senior faculty fellow in Rice’s Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering. “There are many two-dimensional materials that can sense light, but none are as efficient as this material,” he said. “This material is 10 times more efficient than the best we’ve seen before.”

No info on the new sensor's QE is given, however article states that the sensor is transparent.

Manufacturing process starts with few-layer exfoliated CIS on a silicon substrate, ten fabricates three pairs of titanium/gold electrodes on top of the CIS and then cuts the CIS into three sections with a focused ion beam.

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Spectronet posted a presentation "Sony Pregius sensors: A quantum leap for machine vision cameras" by Horst Mattfeldt, Matrix Vision GmbH. Most of it is devoted to the first generation 5.8um pixel IMX174 sensor:


There is also Vimeo video version in German.

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Germany-based BASF, the world's biggest chemical company, develops a 3D image sensor and a camera. "In 2011, BASF scientists invented a new technology with the potential to impact markets as diverse as consumer electronics, automotives, medical applications, and the security industry. At the heart of this technology is a new physical effect, enabled by chemistry developed within BASF. Through a novel distance measurement technique, 3D position detection and 3D imaging can be performed as never before.

Up to now, in state-of-the-art technologies, 3D information was captured either passively by calculating the information from pictures of different perspective angles (triangulation), e.g in stereoscopic cameras, or actively by time-of-flight measurements (ToF). Both traditional technologies use up a large amount of computing power and often require postproduction processing. Now, the BASF sensor works passively with only one lens, and it does not need triangulation for the 3D data capture; this significantly decreases the demand for computing power and makes the 3D data capture very fast: with the new BASF 3D sensor technology real-time 3D imaging may find it’s way into our daily lives."

BASF 3D Sensor

A 120 page-long patent application WO2012110924 "Detector for optically detecting at least one object" by Mohamedi Haroun Al, Ingmar Bruder, Felix Eickemeyer, Peter Erk, Stephan Irle, Andreas Pelster, Rüdiger Sens, and Erwin Thiel, explains how it works:

"the invention is based generally on the hitherto unreported and surprising insight that specific optical sensors exist whose sensor signal is not only dependent on a total light power of the illumination of the sensor region, for example of the sensor area, of these sensors but in which a pronounced signal dependence on a geometry of the illumination, for example a size of a light spot of the illumination on the sensor region, for example the sensor area, also exists. This is generally not the case for most conventional optical sensors, in particular for most inorganic semiconductor sensors, since here the sensor signal is generally dependent only on a total power of the illumination, that is to say an integral over the intensity over the entire light spot which is generally independent of the size of the light spot, that is to say the geometry of the illumination, as long as the light spot lies within the limits of the sensor region. It has surprisingly been discovered, however, that in specific optical sensors, for example organic optical sensors, such a dependence of the sensor signal occurs in which the sensor signal on the one hand rises with the total power of the illumination, but on the other hand, even given a constant total power, is dependent on a geometry of the illumination. Examples of such optical sensors are explained in even greater detail below. By way of example, the sensor signal, given the same total power, can have at least one pronounced maximum for one or a plurality of focusings and/or for one or a plurality of specific sizes of the light spot on the sensor area or within the sensor region."

The application then states that the organic dye-based sensor's response changes if the light is modulated, and using a modulation at different frequencies at two sensors, one can separate illumination and geometrical data. Then the description says:

"In contrast to known detectors, in which a spatial resolution and/or imaging of objects is also generally tied to the fact that the smallest possible sensor areas are used, for example the smallest possible pixels in the case of CCD chips, the sensor region of the proposed detector can be embodied in a very large fashion, in principle, since for example the geometrical information, in particular the at least one item of location information, about the object can be generated from a known relationship for example between the geometry of the illumination and the sensor signal."

The application does not explain much about the processing and how the distance is measured:


The last part of the application is filled by rows of organic chemistry formulas, not sure what they mean:

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Grass Valley's LDK 6000 DPM CCD Multiformat HDTV Camera System, first introduced at the NAB Show in 2000 by Phillips, which was subsequently acquired by Grass Valley, gets 2014 Emmy Award for its ability to capture multiple video formats and frame rates without physically changing the image sensor.

Based on Grass Valley's patented Dynamic Pixel Management (DPM) imager technology, the LDK 6000 Camera has been used in a wide variety of high-profile sports events and broadcasting projects. "The Philips LDK6000 HD Camera System, first demonstrated in 2000, uses their patented DPM (Dynamic Pixel Management) imager technology, enabling the camera to capture multiple video formats and frame rates without physically changing the image sensor. The DPM sensor, a full frame transfer (FT) 2/3" type CCD imager, combines 9.2 million sub pixels (1920x4320) to capture 1920x1080, 1280x720, 720x576, or 720x480 pixel images in 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratios as well as 2.37:1 (Cinemascope). The DPM sensor, coupled with a mechanical blade shutter, eliminates the vertical artifacts and distortions exhibited by an Interline Transfer (IT) CCD type sensor."

"Our patented CCD technology was a real breakthrough in 2000, and the work we are doing now with our FT-CMOS technology is the next step. Being out front in capture technology guarantees that our customers will always be ready for any opportunity that arises in the future," noted Mike Cronk, SVP of strategic marketing, Grass Valley.

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