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IMEC publishes Vimeo video demo of its HSI multispectral camera (which could be compared to 65 000 spectroscope spatially capturing the spectral signature of 32 points):



Recently, IMEC announced that its multispectral imagers are adapted by several camera manufacturers:

"We are excited to announce the successful integration of our first generation hyperspectral image sensor prototypes by several camera vendor companies. These strategic partnerships on different applications highlight the broad potential of this unique optical-filter-on-chip sensor solution," said Rudi Cartuyvels, SVP of smart systems at imec. "Our technology expertise will enable our partners to add new range of products to their offering, effectively opening up new markets in the booming field of imaging spectroscopy."

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Business Wire: Heptagon announces the general availability of its TrueD H2 array camera, the first in a series of advanced 3D imaging and depth sensing micro systems that Heptagon is introducing to the market. The TrueD H2 camera has one of the smallest form factors currently available for mass production, measuring just 5.9mmx5.8mmx2.25mm.

Heptagon’s TrueD H2 array camera captures additional short-range depth information for gesture and user recognition, background removal, and enhanced imaging. Its key features are typically used for front-facing smart device cameras, but can also add value as an assisting camera to the smart device’s primary camera. The TrueD H2 array camera is the result of integration of its image sensor, module, optics, algorithms, and software.

"Smart device innovations continue at warp speed, transforming the ways people interact with their devices. So, our challenge is to deliver micro imaging and sensing systems for these devices with enhanced capabilities, ultra high quality, ever-shrinking form factor and optimal cost," said Rene Kromhof, Heptagon’s VP of sales and marketing. "With the TrueD H2 array camera, we have proven our ability to innovate rapidly and produce high-volume, market-ready solutions that meet customers’ unique and demanding requirements."

In addition to depth mapping, low z-height, and low power consumption, the TrueD H2 array camera features a unique, patented focus correction packaging (FCP) that accelerates low cost, high quality production. FCP enables high-throughput, low cycle time module assembly, without the need for active alignment systems or barrel-mount solutions. In addition to faster line production, FCP also drives higher yield and therefore lower overall unit costs – important benefits for rapid, high volume manufacturing of smart devices.

The TrueD H2 2x2 array camera is the result of more than three years of development efforts from Heptagon. The 2014-15 pipeline will include new array formats, lens enhancements, higher resolution, and additional sensing system innovations.

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PR Newswire: China-based Wafer Level Chip Scale Package (WLCSP) has been listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and has raised US$118M with an IPO price of US$780M - not a bad valuation for a company that begun as an image sensor packaging house. The company started in 2005, when essentially all Shellcase manufacturing business was moved to China. Shellcase R&D team was sold to Tessera for $33M in 2006, while WLCSP manufacturing in China grew into a large business, although still remaining in 8-inch wafer realm:

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Nikkei article says that "Apple is likely looking to switch to Sony sensors for the secondary camera on the screen side, used for taking self-portraits." Up to now, most of the front sensors for iPhone were sourced from Omnivision. So far Sony only supplied high resolution rear sensor to Apple. If the report is true, then either Apple is going to switch its front sensor to higher resolution, like some Chinese smartphone vendors, or Sony is moving to capture some of the lower end sensor market. The former might be more probable, as Nikkei says that Apple asked Sony to double image sensor production.

Nikkei claims that "A request from Apple [to increase CMOS sensors supply] was the reason for its January decision to purchase a plant from Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics, according to a source involved in the negotiations." "Sony is a supplier for Samsung Electronics, the world's top smartphone seller, and No. 3 Huawei Technologies, as well as Apple." "Sony's image sensor sales, chiefly CMOS sensors, are expected to total about 360 billion yen ($3.47 billion) this fiscal year. It held the largest share of the global CMOS sensor market in 2012 at 32.1%, according to Techno Systems Research."

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Invisage apparently prepares the public to a release of its first product later this year. Invisage CTO and Founder, Ted Sargent, posts in the company blog:

"InVisage’s QuantumFilm offers consistently maximal fill factors for all pixel sizes—today’s leading-edge 1.1 um pixels. QuantumFilm enables 100% fill factor by virtue of its being continuous. The entire area of the imaging array is occupied by a medium whose sole purpose is light sensing. At the same time, 100% of each pixel is also available to the silicon beneath for rendering beautiful color images."

"New features enabled by InVisage’s advance include ultra-high sensitive, ultra-wide dynamic range, and ultra-high resolution imaging. New capabilities include the first shutter capability built into the image sensor itself, and reach into the spectral regimes invisible to silicon."

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Sigma announces "Foveon X3 Quattro direct image sensor" with top blue sensing layer split into four pixels, on top of the single green and read pixels:

The new 1:1:4 structure (bottom 1: middle 1: top 4) offers higher resolution that is equivalent to 39 megapixels for conventional color filter array sensors. In addition to the higher resolution, the sensor offers enhanced noise characteristics and faster processing and writing to memory of high-volume image data.

The new split-blue approach is said to increase the sonsor's resolution by 30% to be equivalent of that of 39MP Bayer sensor.

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Yole Developpement publishes the 2012 market shares, based on revenue (click to enlarge):

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BDTI publishes an article on Imagination Technology's Raptor ISP IP, announced in Nov. 2013. Imagination got into ISP technology with Nethra acquisition in June 2012. The company claims a number of advantages  of moving the ISP functionality from image sensor to an application processor:

• No functional constraints that might be caused by the image sensor's or standalone chip's comparatively conservative manufacturing process
• Higher performance due to the application processor's same process advantages
• Access to main system memory for enhanced functionality, and
• Reduced cost and increased flexibility in image sensor choice

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Aptina publishes brochures presenting its solutions for mobile, medical, and surveillance markets.

The mobile brochure promotes Clarity+ technology:


Medical brochure emphasizes high color accuracy and low noise:

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Integrated Systems Europe 2014 exhibition has held an investor panel selecting the best startup companies. SoftKinetic was voted "Best Overall" by the panel. The investor jury included 360 Capital, Atlantic Bridge (AbVen), Beringea, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, Intel Capital, Prime Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Swisscom Ventures and Wellington Partners.

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Albert Theuwissen continues his review of 2014 Electronic Imaging Conference papers. In the second part, CEA-Leti noise analysis of 4T pixel is presented, with recommendations on the noise reduction. IMSE-CNM paper on imagers ADC architectures, and Shuzuoka University no-STI pixel paper are reviewed too.

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BAE Fairchild Imaging presents its sCMOS 2.0 imager at Photonics West show in San Francisco. The 4.2MP SCI2020 sensor is supposed to be available in June 2014. Here is its flyer scan:


My first impressions:

• 3% RMS PRNU is quite high for such a large pixel. Not clear why it's that high.
• 30,000e- full well over 2e- read noise does not make 87db DR, like the table states. May be achieved at slower speeds when the read noise is lower
• -0.4V supply voltage is used for Tx gate bias during integration, I guess.

Thanks to BP for the info!

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Albert Theuwissen begins to publish a review of papers from the SPIE Electronic Imaging Conference. The first part talks about a fast CCD CMOS pixel design with transfer time of just 5ns, and the two time-to-saturation pixel papers.

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Tech-On reports that University of Tokyo, Kyushu University and NMEMS Technology Research Organization presented a new technology of improving the sensitivity of Si-based NIR sensor at IEEE MEMS 2014 conference conference held in San Francisco on Jan 26-30, 2014. Isao Shimoyama (University of Tokyo), Chihaya Adachi (Kyushu University), Yoshiharu Ajiki (exchange researcher at NMEMS Technology Research Organization, Olympus Corp)etc. extended the sensitivity to 1.2um "by adding 10nm-class metal nano structures to Si to increase electric current generated by receiving lights with certain wavelengths such as infrared light":

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ARM publishes a CES 2014 demo video of a gesture control software running on its Mali GPU:

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Invisage publishes a promotional Youtube video. The rumor is that the company is to launch its 13MP INV1310 QuantumFilm sensor this spring, targeting high-end smartphones.

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Pressebox: Japan-based Taiyo Yuden announces a new type of copper-core embedded-parts multilayer wiring substrate “EOMIN” with a cavity formation technology that enables the creation of a depression in a part of the substrate:


A multilayer wiring substrate for camera modules mounted in compact mobile devices such as smartphones and wearable devices. Thinner camera modules can be realized by mounting an image sensor in the cavity.

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Vision Systems Design: Varioptic and Datalogic announce the availability of Datalogic’s Matrix 300 barcode reader and PowerScan PD9500 HP mobile scanner with variable focus liquid lenses from Varioptic. Matrix 300 barcode readers are intended for marking applications including those in manufacturing, electronics, automotive, medical device traceability, food and beverage, and clinical lab automation applications. PowerScan PBT9500 HP 2D handheld area imagers are aimed to mobile scanning in warehouses, logistics, and manufacturing applications. Both of these devices feature a Varioptic liquid lens for variable focus from 5 cm to infinity. In addition, the lenses enable lower power consumption and higher shock resistance.

If I'm not mistaken, Datalogic is worldwide #2 in barcode readers, after Motorola Symbol. "The addition of Varioptic’s liquid lens with no moving parts to the PowerScan imager’s other advanced features allows us to offer an even more reliable product with higher performance levels," said Giulio Berzuini, VP and GM for the Hand Held Scanners Business Unit of Datalogic.

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Kotaku, Forbes and other sites quote Korean-language newspaper Hankooki saying that Kinect-based system identifies the objects crossing the DMZ between South and North Koreas. It can discern the difference between animals and humans. If the system detects a human, it will alert the nearby outpost. Further details are sparse, supposedly because this involves South Korea national security.

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PR Newswire: Plastic Logic and ISORG picked up the award for their large area flexible image sensor at the FlexTech Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.

The collaboration is based on the deposition of organic printed photodetectors (OPD) by ISORG, onto a plastic organic thin-film transistor (OTFT) backplane by Plastic Logic, to create a flexible sensor with a 4x4 cm active area, 375um pitch (175um pixel size with 200um spacing) and 94 x 95 = 8930 pixel resolution. This award recognises the potential of the technology in a range of applications and the competitive advantages of such products. The range of new applications is in digital image sensing, including smart packaging and sensors for medical equipment and biomedical diagnostics, security and mobile commerce (user identification by fingerprint scanning), environmental and other industrial uses. Most exciting of all is the ability to enable scanning surfaces and novel 3D interactive (gesture based) user interfaces for consumer electronics, including printers, smartphones and tablets.

Indro Mukerjee, CEO of Plastic Logic said "The collaboration with ISORG has showcased the exciting potential of combining two disruptive technologies and we plan to work together to bring new applications to market. This again underlines the real impact of plastic electronics as it starts to go mainstream in consumer markets." Jean-Yves Gomez, CEO of ISORG, stated "This collaboration demonstrates the versatility of organic electronics to combine two different technologies to create new and disruptive products for a broad range of markets. The first large area image sensor on plastic has already attracted strong interest from industry and consumer electronics leaders for new applications and functionalities."

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Samsung published a Youtube video promoting its ISOCELL technology:

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PR Newswire: Frost & Sullivan released "Strategic Analysis of the World Optical and Image Sensors Market". A few of their market observations:

• Maintaining a balance between high image quality, technology, and price is the biggest challenge for the industry.
• It is difficult for smaller manufacturers to differentiate their products by any factor, other than price. This deters their entry into high-volume applications markets.
• Shortening the development time for optical and image sensors is important because of the short product life cycles of the consumer market where they are primarily targeted.

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UCLA Extension offers two courses on image sensors in March 2014:

March 10-12: "Fundamentals of CCD and CMOS Imagers and Camera Systems" by James Janesick, SRI
March 13-14: "Applications, Design, and Testing of CMOS and CCD Sensors and Camera Systems" by Terrence Lomheim, The Aerospace Corp.

The detailed program of the courses can be seen on the links above.

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Japanese language Egami blog noticed Sony patent application proposing to use nano-carbon film that apparently changes its transparency with applied electrical field. It looks like the transparency is modulated only in IR band, but Sony considers it significant enough to apply for an IR shutter patent.

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2015 International Image Sensor Workshop (IISW) will be held on June 8-11, 2015 in Kasteel Vaalsbroek (Vaals, The Netherlands):


General Workshop Co-Chairs:
Johannes Solhusvik - OmniVision
Albert Theuwissen – Harvest Imaging & Delft Univ. of Technology

Technical Program Chair:
Pierre Magnan – Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace

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Sharp published a page explaining its iSHCCD and iSHCCDII improvements in the recently announced iSHartina line. iSHCCD features an improved microlens shape:


iSHCCD-II features improved IR sensitivity achieved by the deeper photodiode implants:


These two modifications give iSHCCD a significant QE improvement over the non-iSHartina CCDs:


Sharp also announces a new member of iSHCCD II family - a 1.3MP/30fps RJ33J3CA0DT.

Update: The links above have been changed to English version.

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Samsung patent application US20140014818 "Pixel array, image sensor including the same, and method of compensating for local dark current" by Young Sung Cho, Dong Jae Lee, Tae Chan Kim, and Tomer Livneh propose a simple approach to compensate the black level variations across the pixel array. The idea is simple: a number of dark, light-shielded pixels is distributed in random or not-so-random way across the array, and their interpolated output is used for local black level calculations:


There are few modifications that need to be added to that application:

• Light leaks or photoelectrons diffusion to the shielded pixels can distort the black level measurements. Unless this is completely resolved in the company's ISOCELL technology, one might need to light-block the larger groups of pixels.
• dark current varies a lot on pixel-by-pixel basis. So, it needs to be somehow averaged across the neighboring dark pixels
• there are hot pixels, whose dark current is just abnormally high and carries no information about other pixels in the area. They need to be excluded from the dark current calculation process.

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