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National Geographic publishes a nice article on biological eye evolution and vision of different animals:


The magazine also publishes a short video on that:



Thanks to DSSB for the link!

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ResearchInChina publishes the 2015 update of its "Global and China CCM (CMOS Camera Module) Industry Report." Few quotes, starting from CMOS image sensor market overview:

"In CIS field, shipments are expected to amount to 4,196 million units in 2015 and 4,390 million units in 2016, up 8.8% and 4.6% against the previous year, respectively, compared with annual growth of 11.5% in 2014, indicating a further slowdown. The market size is predicted to be USD9.16 billion in 2015 and USD9.628 billion in 2016, a year-on-year rise of 4.6% and 5.1%, respectively, compared with annual increase of 10.7% in 2014. Except for On-Semi, Sony and Sharp, all other vendors experienced declines... On-Semi is a bellwether in automotive CIS field, seizing nearly 50% market share. As integration went well very after acquisition of Aptina by On-Semi, combined with explosive growth in automotive camera market, On-Semi embraced rapid development in its CIS business, and is expected to record revenue of USD720 million in 2015, including USD400 million from automotive field, a surge of more than 100%.

Global CCM market size was worth USD16.247 billion in 2015, a year-on-year rise of 3.8% from 2014, the slowest rate since 2010. It is expected that growth rate will continue to decelerate in 2016, only 1.3%, but bounce back slightly to 1.6% in 2017 with a market size of USD16.732 billion.

Largan Precision still outshined others in Lens field with high-speed growth, while the rest of vendors almost all suffered setback in Lens business, except for the vendors with automotive Lens business which witnessed significant growth in such field but with a low ASP. Sunny Optical still ranked first globally in automotive Lens; Kantatsu, a subsidiary of Sharp, made its way into the supply chain of Apple with considerable performance growth.

Japanese companies dominated OIS market with Alps and Mitsumi tied for the first place and both being major suppliers for Apple. In addition, Mitsumi also aggressively marched into Chinese mainland market, planning to invest JPY25 billion to expand capacity over the next two years with the aim of competing for the global champion with Alps.

Bi-Direction and Close-Loop have become two main technologies in VCM field. Japanese vendors exited from low-end VCM field and focused on OIS or Bi-Direction and Close-Loop. The emergence of mainland Chinese companies in low-end market resulted in fierce competition.

In an increasingly competitive CCM field, the majority of companies were caught in the price war and the market became more concentrated. Many vendors registered higher shipments but smaller revenue, even the number of pixel increased. Sharp, performing the best, became the second largest supplier for Apple that placed more orders with Sharp so as to reduce its reliance on LG-INNOTEK, but LG-INNOTECK was still the largest supplier for Apple and ranked first by revenue globally. Cowell, the third largest supplier for Apple, also did very well, and was one of few companies with improved gross margin. SEMCO won more orders from Samsung. Sunny Optical, the No. 1 mainland Chinese vendor, maintained the momentum of strong growth but with a stagnant gross margin, and started shifting its focus to Lens field in the hope of raising its overall growth margin. LITEON selectively gave up low-end business and saw a decline in orders from its major customer Samsung, leading to a collapse in revenue. MCNEX found strong growth in revenue by relying on automotive business."

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MarketWired: The Linley Group announces the winners of its annual Analysts' Choice Awards which recognize the top semiconductor products of 2015. Ceva XM4 vision processor won the Award in Best Processor IP category.

"Our awards program not only recognizes excellence in chip design and innovation, but also recognizes the products that our analysts believe will have an impact on future designs," said Linley Gwennap, founder and principal analyst at The Linley Group. "These products significantly improve the design of systems in their target applications."

CEVA XM4 applications

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e2v patent application US20160005785 "Image sensor with anti-blooming gate" by Frédéric Barbier and Frédéric Mayer gives the following explanation of the excessive dark current resulting from a positive bias of the antiblooming gate G5:


"If the potential applied to the gate G5 is 0.6 to 1.1 volts, the potential in the active layer 12 beneath the gate G5 will be positive, equal to around 0.2 volts for example. There then exists a strong local electric field beneath the gate at the surface of the silicon towards the edge of the photodiode which is maintained at 0 volts by the surface region 16. This electric field acts by lowering the forbidden band of the semiconductor and by therefore increasing the probability of electrons passing into the conduction band. This is a physical effect of band-to-band tunnelling, which creates a leakage current. Electrons are generated beneath the gate without the lighting being the cause; they will go to be stored in the photodiode with the highest potential. This current can be likened to a dark current since it exists independently of the lighting. This dark current, specifically due to the presence of a difference between the potential beneath the gate and the surface potential of the photodiode, is particularly bothersome when detection of weak lighting is desired. It can be several hundred times higher than if the potential beneath the gate was nil."

Whether this explanation is correct or not, the patent application proposes a pulsed anti-blooming bias to minimize the dark current:

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Nikkei reports that Sony plans to start mass production of its automotive CMOS image sensor in May 2016. Initially, Sony planned to start volume production in December 2015. Slightly delayed, the first automotive product is expected to be IMX224MQV, a 1/3-inch 1.27MP CMOS sensor, announced in Oct 2014 and sampled since Nov 2014. Sony says that the sensor is able to shoot "high-quality color video" even with a luminance of 0.005lx, which is equivalent to a luminance on a dark night (darker than starlight).

If the mass production begins in May 2016 as scheduled, the IMX224MQV might be used in vehicles to be released in 2018. EuroNCAP (European New Car Assessment Programme) will start to evaluate the capability of avoiding collision with passengers and bicycles at night in 2018. "The year 2018 is especially important," Sony said. "High sensitivity for nighttime shooting is important, and we will utilize our strength improved in the smartphone market."

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New Imaging Technologies announces new analog WDR InGaAs cameras series in 320x256 pixel (QVGA) or 640x512 pixels (VGA). The analog WiDy SWIR cameras are available in CCIR (25fps) or EIA (30fps) version with either rolling QVGA 320A or global/snapshot QVGA 320A-S and VGA 640A-S. The cameras are TECless and feature over 140dB intra-scene DR.

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Optics.org: Researchers at SINTEF, Norway, are working with partners across Europe to develop sensors and lasers for under water ToF camera. The EU project UTOFIA (Underwater Time Of Flight Image Acquisition) has a budget of €5.7M, and will continue till 2018 as part of the European research program Horizon 2020. The other partners in the project are Bright Solutions (Italy), a Fraunhofer research center (Germany), Odos Imaging (UK), Subsea Tech (France), AZTI (Spain) and DTU Aqua (Denmark).

“The biggest problem with traditional cameras is that their range is reduced in poor visibility, particularly in coastal waters made turbid by suspended sand and clay particles. Such cameras have a very limited range under these conditions”, said Project Manager Jens Thielemann at SINTEF.

The camera shutter is kept closed for approximately 50ns before it opens. When the first 50 ns is gated out, most of the backscattering contribution to the noise is removed.

Thanks to SO for the link!

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DARPA scientists suspect that the performance of light-based applications could improve by orders of magnitude if they could get beyond conventional photon detector designs—perhaps even to the point of being able to identify each and every photon relevant to a given application.

DARPA’s Fundamental Limits of Photon Detection—or Detect—program aims to establish the first-principles limits of photon detector performance by developing new fully quantum models of photon detection in a variety of technology platforms, and by testing those models in proof-of-concept experiments.

“The goal of the Detect program is to determine how precisely we can spot individual photons and whether we can maximize key characteristics of photon detectors simultaneously in a single system,” said Prem Kumar, DARPA program manager. “This is a fundamental research effort, but answers to these questions could radically change light detection as we know it and vastly improve the many tools and avenues of discovery that today rely on light detection.”

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ON Semiconductor’s KAE-02150 EMCCD wins Electronic Products Magazine 2015 Product of the Year Award:

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Invisage publishes media responses on its demos at CES 2016:

Click for a larger version

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Digitimes: Pixart plans to buy back up to 2M of its shares from January 12 to March 11. The repurchased shares will be distributed to employees, the company said. This share buyback is the third conducted by the company since September 2015.

Due to rise in shipments of automotive and security & surveillance sensors, as well optical mice sensors, Pixart revenues increased 1.2% QoQ to NT$1.08 billion (US$32.3M) in Q4 2015. Pixart reported revenues of NT$4.32 billion for 2015, down about 9% on year.

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TI white paper on biometrics publishes market shares of the biometric technologies. Optical imaging approaches dominate the market by far:

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Volkswagen announces an automatic driving strategic partnership with Mobileye:

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BusinessWire: ON Semiconductor announces the KAI-47051 CCD, the world’s highest resolution Interline Transfer CCD device. The 47MP KAI-47051 increases the resolution available for applications such as end-of-line flat panel inspection and aerial mapping by more than 50% compared to the 29MP KAI-29050 CCD widely used in these applications today. This is achieved while retaining the CCD-level image uniformity and global shutter architecture those applications require. The new device is aimed to the growing inspection demand for higher resolution smartphones, tablets, computer monitors, and televisions; and to improve image quality and overall efficiency in surveillance applications such as aerial mapping.

In addition to providing higher resolution through a larger optical format, the KAI-47051 incorporates a reduced-noise amplifier that lowers read noise by 15% compared to the existing device, increasing DR to 66dB. A 16-output architecture enables a maximum frame rate of 7fps, almost double that of the existing, lower resolution device.

One of the nice features of ON Semi CCDs is a fairly detailed spec published together with the new product announcement:

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GlobeNewsWire: TowerJazz, TowerJazz Panasonic Semiconductor Co. (TPSCo), and PIXELPLUS announce they have collaborated to produce a state-of-the-art HD and FHD (full HD) SoC security sensor using TPSCo's leading 65nm CIS process. Production is expected to start at the beginning of 2016 at TPSCo's 12" fab in Japan.

PIXELPLUS integrates ISP and HD-Analog transmission function onto a CMOS sensor, said to be the first time in the world. The HD-transmission function enables data transmission over coaxial cables to distances longer than 500 meters.

PIXELPLUS is said to hold number one position worldwide in the security/surveillance market, which includes 34% market share in 2014 by dominating VGA.

"Through our collaboration with TPSCo, we were able to produce an HD and FHD SoC security sensor with unprecedented performance. We are excited to begin production as this type of business growth to FHD/HD is expected to provide us with a significant contribution in revenues and will keep PIXELPLUS on top in the future with the world's best image quality for CMOS image sensors," said Seo-Kyu Lee, CEO, PIXELPLUS.

"We look forward to expanding our relationship with PIXELPLUS and supporting the expected boom in the security market especially in China where we aim to take a lead position," said Russell Ellwanger, CEO, TowerJazz and Chairman of TPSCo. "The leadership of PIXELPLUS in the surveillance market, combined with our best in class 65nm CIS process, enables breakthrough technology which can be applied to other markets requiring higher resolution, such as automotive sensors, in which we also have extensive manufacturing experience."

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Aphesa publishes a Youtube video showing its EMVA1288 camera test setup:

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As Boyd Fowler's LinkedIn page says, he has left Google and now is Vice President at Omnivision.

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BusinessWire: Heptagon introduces OLIVIA, a complete ToF system module with an integrated microprocessor, adaptive algorithms, advanced optics, ToF sensor and light source. OLIVIA can accurately measure distance up to 2 meters in normal lighting conditions, compared with other solutions that are only able to reach similar distances in lower lighting. OLIVIA also requires 40% less power when ranging than alternate solutions.

“We’re excited about the advancements OLIVIA brings to the market,” says René Kromhof, SVP of Sales and Marketing at Heptagon. “Our team is moving fast - In less than 3 months from the release of LAURA, our first product, we have introduced OLIVIA, our next generation sensor. With over 20 years’ experience in highly accurate distance mapping and 3D imaging technology, Heptagon is uniquely positioned to innovate and rapidly bring world-class products to market.”

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2016 IS&T International Symposium on Electronic Imaging to be held on Feb. 14–18 in San Francisco, CA, publishes its preliminary Program. There are many image sensor related short courses and papers:

EI13: Introduction to CMOS Image Sensor Technology
Instructor: Arnaud Darmont, APHESA

A time-of-flight CMOS range image sensor using 4-tap output pixels with lateral-electric-field control,
Taichi Kasugai, Sang-Man Han, Hanh Trang, Taishi Takasawa, Satoshi Aoyama, Keita Yasutomi, Keiichiro Kagawa, and Shoji Kawahito;
Shizuoka Univ. and Brookman Technology (Japan)

Design, implementation and evaluation of a TOF range image sensor using multi-tap lock-in pixels with cascaded charge draining and modulating gates,
Trang Nguyen, Taichi Kasugai, Keigo Isobe, Sang-Man Han, Taishi Takasawa, De XIng Lioe, Keita Yasutomi, Keiichiro Kagawa, and Shoji Kawahito;
Shizuoka Univ. and Brookman Technology (Japan)

A high dynamic range linear vision sensor with event asynchronous and frame-based synchronous operation,
Juan A. Leñero-Bardallo, Ricardo Carmona-Galán, and Angel Rodríguez-Vázquez,
Universidad de Sevilla (Spain)

A dual-core highly programmable 120dB image sensor,
Benoit Dupont,
Pyxalis (France)

Analog current mode implementation of global and local tone mapping algorithm for wide dynamic range image display,
Peng Chen, Kartikeya Murari, and Orly Yadid-Pecht,
Univ. of Calgary (Canada)

High dynamic range challenges
Short presentation by Arnaud Darmont, APHESA SPRL (Belgium)

Image sensor with organic photoconductive films by stacking the red/green and blue components,
Tomomi Takagi, Toshikatu Sakai, Kazunori Miyakawa, and Mamoru Furuta;
NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories and Kochi University of Technology (Japan)

High-sensitivity CMOS image sensor overlaid with Ga2O3/CIGS heterojunction photodiode,
Kazunori Miyakawa, Shigeyuki Imura, Hiroshi Ohtake, Misao Kubota, Kenji Kikuchi, Tokio Nakada, Toru Okino, Yutaka Hirose, Yoshihisa Kato, and Nobukazu Teranishi;
NHK Science and Technology Research Laboratories, NHK Sapporo Station, Tokyo University of Science, Panasonic Corporation, University of Hyogo, and Shizuoka University (Japan)

Sub-micron pixel CMOS image sensor with new color filter patterns,
Biay-Cheng Hseih, Sergio Goma, Hasib Siddiqui, Kalin Atanassov, Jiafu Luo, RJ Lin, Hy Cheng, Kuoyu Chou, JJ Sze, and Calvin Chao;
Qualcomm Technologies Inc. (United States) and TSMC (Taiwan)

A CMOS image sensor with variable frame rate for low-power operation,
Byoung-Soo Choi, Sung-Hyun Jo, Myunghan Bae, Sang-Hwan Kim, and Jang-Kyoo Shin, Kyungpook National University (South Korea)

ADC techniques for optimized conversion time in CMOS image sensors,
Cedric Pastorelli and Pascal Mellot; ANRT and STMicroelectronics (France)

Miniature lensless computational infrared imager,
Evan Erickson, Mark Kellam, Patrick Gill, James Tringali, and David Stork,
Rambus (United States)

Focal-plane scale space generation with a 6T pixel architecture,
Fernanda Oliveira, José Gabriel Gomes, Ricardo Carmona-Galán, Jorge Fernández-Berni, and Angel Rodríguez-Vázquez;
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Instituto de Microelectrónica de Sevilla (Spain)

Development of an 8K full-resolution single-chip image acquisition system,
Tomohiro Nakamura, Ryohei Funatsu, Takahiro Yamasaki, Kazuya Kitamura, and Hiroshi Shimamoto,
Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) (Japan)

A 1.12-um pixel CMOS image sensor survey,
Clemenz Portmann, Lele Wang, Guofeng Liu, Ousmane Diop, and Boyd Fowler,
Google Inc (United States)

A comparative noise analysis and measurement for n-type and p-type pixels with CMS technique,
Xiaoliang Ge, Bastien Mamdy, and Albert Theuwissen;
Technische Univ. Delft (Netherlands), STMicroelectronics, Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (France), and Harvest Imaging (Belgium)

Increases in hot pixel development rates for small digital pixel sizes,
Glenn Chapman, Rahul Thomas, Rohan Thomas, Klinsmann Meneses, Tony Yang, Israel Koren, and Zahava Koren;
Simon Fraser Univ. (Canada) and Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst (United States)

Correlation of photo-response blooming metrics with image quality in CMOS image sensors,
Pulla Reddy Ailuri, Orit Skorka, Ning Li, Radu Ispasoiu, and Vladi Koborov;
ON Semiconductor (United States)

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Mashable got a chance to see Light Co's L16 52MP array camera prototype at CES 2016. Few quotes from Mashable impressions:

"On the prototype, the photo stitching took a little while to work and froze. In the end, I didn't get to see how fast it was. When I asked Dr. Rajiv Laroia, Light's co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, how long it will take to generate a 52-megapixel image on the final product, he told me they're shooting for under a minute.

That's a long time to wait for a complete image. The Light team is going to try to make the processing as fast and instantaneous as possible, but the company's not promising anything faster than under a minute right now."

"I have to admit, the sample image taken by the L16 looked pretty good with lots of details when zoomed in, but it also looked like it had a lot of image noise."

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VentureBeat reports that Lenovo and Google announce a partnership to create a smartphone with 3D camera-based Project Tango. Jeff Meredith, Lenovo VP, said the goal was to make a mainstream device scheduled to appear on the market on summer 2016.

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PRNewswire: Socionext (Fujitsu + Panasonic Semi) introduces “M-12MO” (MBG967) Milbeaut Image Processor. The MBG967, which will be available in volume shipments starting in January, is mainly targeted at smartphones and other mobile applications. It supports dual camera, the latest trend in mobile applications, along with functionalities such as low light shot and depth map generation. The expansion of dual camera capabilities in the mobile camera market has been highly anticipated because dual cameras enable new functionalities previously considered difficult with mobile cameras. These include low light shot, which integrates images from color and monochrome sensors, and the generation of depth maps, which can create background blur comparable to that of SLR cameras.

Main features of the MBG967 include:

Low light shot by dual camera: By integrating the images from color and monochrome image sensors, the MBG967 enables high-sensitivity, low-noise pictures:


High-speed, high-accuracy auto focus supports high speed “Phase Detect AF”, in addition to conventional “Contrast AF”. The MBG967 also supports “Laser AF” which has an advantage in the low light conditions. Its “Super Hybrid AF” utilizes these three AF methods in combination, always allowing faster and more accurate AF in varying conditions:

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Intel announces R200 RealSense 3D camera, said to be the company's first long-range depth camera for 2 in 1s and tablets. The new camera is aimed to:

• 3D scanning: Scan people and objects in 3D to share on social media or print on a 3D printer.
• Immersive Gaming: Scan oneself into a game and be the character in top rated games
• Enhanced Photography/Video: Create live video with depth enabled special effects, remove/change backgrounds or enhance the focus and color of photographs on the fly.
• Immersive Shopping: Capturing body shape and measurements as depth data that is transformed into a digital model enabling people to virtually try on clothes.

The RealSense R200 camera is capable of capturing VGA-resolution depth information at 60 fps. The camera uses dual-infrared imagers to calculate depth using stereoscopic techniques. By leveraging IR technology, the camera provides reliable depth information even in darker areas and shadows as well as when capturing flat or texture-less surfaces. The operating range for the Intel RealSense Camera R200 is between 0.5 meters and 3.5 meters, in indoor situations. The RGB sensor is 1080p resolution at 30 fps.

A number of OEM featurs RealSense R200, including the HP Spectre x2, Lenovo Ideapad Miix 700, Acer Aspire Switch 12 S, NEC LaVie Hybrid Zero11 and Panasonic. The Intel RealSense Camera R200 is supported on all Windows 10 systems that run on 6th Generation Intel Core Processors.

RealSense ZR300 camera is an integrated unit within the new RealSense Smartphone Developer Kit. The Intel RealSense Camera ZR300 provides high-quality and high-density depth data at VGA-resolution of 60 fps. The ZR300 supports Google Project Tango spec for feature tracking and synchronization via time stamping between sensors.

Source: The Inquirer

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Mobileye CES 2016 presentation has a slide on its requests to ON Semi and Sony on the future automotive image sensors, starting from time 27:30:


Thanks to DS for the link!

Update: The CES 2016 presentation video has been posted on Youtube:

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NVIDIA launches NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2, said to be the world’s most powerful engine for in-vehicle artificial intelligence. DRIVE PX 2 can process the inputs of 12 video cameras, plus lidar, radar and ultrasonic sensors. It fuses them to accurately detect objects, identify them, determine where the car is relative to the world around it, and then calculate its optimal path for safe travel.

The company's Youtube promo video presents the new processor:

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BusinessWire: Ambarella introduces the H2 and H12 camera SoCs for sports and flying cameras. 14nm process-based H2 targets high-end camera models with 4K Ultra HD H.265/HEVC video at 60 fps and 4K AVC video at 120 fps and includes 10-bit HDR video processing. 28nm process-based H12 targets mainstream cameras and offers 4K Ultra HD HEVC video at 30 fps.

“With the introduction of H2 and H12 we now provide a complete portfolio of 4K Ultra HD HEVC solutions for sports and flying cameras,” said Fermi Wang, President and CEO of Ambarella.

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Himax announces that its Wafer Level Optics (“WLO”) laser diode collimator with integrated Diffractive Optical Element (“DOE”) has been integrated into laser projectors for next-generation structured light camera. Himax's WLO systemhas a height of less than two millimeters. The WLO component is then stacked on top of a laser diode to reduce the overall height of a coded laser projector assembly to five millimeters.

Jordan Wu, President and CEO of Himax Technologies says "We are currently collaborating with several major OEMs' product developments using our WLO as our expertise in WLO design and manufacturing enables significant size and cost reduction of coded laser projectors. For example, in an active sensing 3D camera projector, our technology can reduce the size of the incumbent laser projector module by a factor of 9, actually making it smaller than conventional camera modules. This breakthrough allows our WLO collimator to be easily integrated into next-generation smartphones, tablets, automobiles, wearable devices, IoT applications, consumer electronics accessories and several other products to enable new applications in the consumer, medical, and industrial marketplaces."

The WLO laser collimator and DOE will be manufactured by Himax’s Wafer Optics production facility in Taiwan. The first production run for 3D camera applications is scheduled for delivery and sampling by Himax's partners and select
customers in Q1 2016.

Update: GlobeNewsWire: Himax reports "higher-than-expected engineering fees from AR/VR project engagements with both current and new customers."

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EETimes: Christopher Bergey, VP & GM of Mobile and Connected Solutions, SanDisk, makes mobile imaging predictions for 2016:

"As we move into 2016, we will see major strides made towards a radically new smartphone camera market. Camera makers are pushing the boundaries of technology and exploring new areas, such as 3D cameras, massive megapixels (80MB), cameras that can take 360 degree panoramic images and video and cameras that can shoot 1,000 frames a second. 4K Ultra HD for mobile is another move to watch in 2016. Not just for video streaming, we’ll see users take advantage of this extreme resolution in new ways as they shoot and create their own content on their smartphones."

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IS&T Electronic Imaging (EI) Symposium publishes 2015 Stereoscopic Displays and Applications Keynote video: What is stereoscopic vision good for? by Jenny Read:

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GlobeNewsWire: STMicroelectronics releases its second-generation FlightSense sensor for mobile devices. The new VL53L0 is faster, working over longer distances, and more accurate.

With its form factor of 4.4 x 2.4 x 1mm, the 6-pin packaged VL53L0 is said to be the smallest ToF module in the world, and the first to integrate a 940nm VCSEL light source, a SPAD photon detector, and an advanced microcontroller to manage the complete ranging function. Being the market's first module to use light emitted at 940nm, coupled to leading-edge infrared filters, the VL53L0 is said to deliver best-in-class ambient light immunity and is now invisible to the human eye.

"ST technology advancements in Time-of-Flight ranging sensors are enhancing the experience for millions of consumers, revolutionizing the way they take pictures and videos with their smartphones and tablets," said Eric Aussedat, GM of ST's Imaging Division. "ST introduced the first fully-integrated Time-of-Flight ranging sensor to the market in 2014, which was then successfully adopted by several leading OEMs for the laser-assisted autofocus function. Today, with the VL53L0, our next generation, ST is redefining the benchmark in ranging performance and creating the opportunity to develop new applications in robotics and the IoT."

The VL53L0 is able to perform a full measurement operation in one image frame, typically less than 30ms, at distances beyond 2m. With such performance levels the camera system can achieve instant focus in both video and burst modes, even in low-light or low-contrast scenes.

The VL53L0 is in production and available now, priced from $1.75 at the minimum order quantity of 5,000 units.

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