Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Semico Research publishes Capex rating of the semiconductor companies in 2015. "In the top fifteen, the company with the largest increase is Sony, with a 207% increase to almost US$2 billion. The bulk of this increase is to expand image sensor production capacity, but some will also be spent on camera module production capacity, a relatively new market for Sony. Sony’s dollar increase is second only to Samsung’s, but this is partly due to the decline in value of the yen."

The rating has been published on June 22, a week before the latest Sony announcement of the additional investment.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Semico Research publishes 2015 semiconductor companies Capex ranking. "In the top fifteen, the company with the largest increase is Sony, with a 207% increase to almost US$2 billion. The bulk of this increase is to expand image sensor production capacity, but some will also be spent on camera module production capacity, a relatively new market for Sony. Sony’s dollar increase is second only to Samsung’s, but this is partly due to the decline in value of the yen."

The ranking has been published on June 22, a week before the latest Sony announcement of the additional investment.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Marketwired: Palo Alto, CA-based Light startup that recently came out of stealth mode with an array camera for smartphones, announced a manufacturing partnership with China-based Sunny Optical Technology. The announcement comes in an unusual bullet fashion:

• Light's imaging technology radically reduces the size, cost and weight of advanced optics systems, resulting in high-quality imaging in a smaller form factor.
• With this partnership, Sunny Optical will build and assemble Light's camera modules, which is a core component of the imaging technology.
• Precision manufacturing, including active alignment, of the camera modules is critical in order to produce high-resolution images, without sacrificing the field of focus.
• Active alignment ensures the optical center of the lens barrel aligns with the optical center of the sensor assembly.
• As the global leader in integrated optical manufacturing, Sunny Optical can manufacture and assemble Light's imaging technology at scale.
• Light was co-founded by Dave Grannan (CEO) and Rajiv Laroia (CTO) in 2013.
• Financial terms of the partnership have not been disclosed.

Dave Grannan, CEO and co-founder, Light:
"To provide great imagery, we need to deliver an impeccably produced product. Sunny Optical delivers first-class manufacturing capabilities and the capacity to produce high-quality camera components at a global scale. The camera modules are the principal ingredient in Light's breakthrough technology and we are thrilled to be working with a manufacturing leader like Sunny Optical to make our vision a reality."

David Wang, CEO, Sunny Opotech - a company of Sunny Optical Technology:
"Light's technology brings a new element to the imaging market, and we are excited to work with Dave and the Light team. With our leading imaging and optical expertise, we look to continue to help our partners develop smart and integrated imaging and optical systems."

Light Co. team, May 2015

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Invisage publishes an impressively big list of newspaper articles covering the opening of its QFAB3 in Taiwan last month. The article that has attracted my attention is a Chinese site 52RD interview with Jess Lee, Invisage CEO. Few quotes, in Bing translation:

"Compared to CMOS, quantum films have a very big advantage, is very thin. Jess said, quantum well thin film sensor modules can do 4mm, and minimum can only do 4.8mm CMOS sensor module, though only the 0.8mm gap, but used on cell phone cameras and wearable devices, will be a big change, maybe your next-generation iPhone camera will not be highlighted."

"The Taiwan new factories are small, but the plant can support 10% market. Production processes are TSMC's wafers first, then we will spread the quantum film, then to partners to test, then made modules. This process and the traditional CMOS is the same, just adding the cover of quantum film, a step, so quantum thin film sensor camera performance can be increased 5 times."

"At present, we only produce a small number of wafer and will ramp up in the second half of this year. ...our first samples had been provided to a number of important customers, they have done tests and gave very positive feedback, later this year we will have more samples available to more customers. Over time, our formal product launches will be held in Shanghai, and after product formal release, we will provide samples for Mainland, 7 August should be, we can look forward to you."

"InVisage will focus on cell phone cameras, this is a very large market and opportunities. Smartphone carrying quantum thin-film technologies are expected to be listed in 1 year."

"...we have no competitors or partners before, but last year we held out olive branches of the two companies, Sony is one of their quantum is very interested in thin film technology."


"As shown in the image above, Orange represents QuantumFilm absorption capacity, gray are Silicon absorbs light, you can see the gap between the two great. The biggest advantage is that absorption capacity can increase the dynamic range of the camera, dynamic range represents the phone can take a much brighter white and dark black, best embodies quality and filmed under strong light at night. Low light performance is the greatest weakness of the CMOS sensor and mobile phones cannot be one of the main reasons that night."

The interview concludes with a comparison picture with the regular CMOS sensors on the left and Invisage QuantumFilm device on the right. The first row compares full well, I guess, (4000e- vs 12,000e-), the second row is a camera module z-height (5mm vs 4mm), the third row shows the absense of rolling shutter distortions in QF sensors.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Melexis new EVK75023 evaluation kit is based on its MLX75023 QVGA ToF sensor with Softkinetic's DepthSense pixels and is co-developed with BlueTechnix.

“By using Melexis’ automotive-grade ToF offering, automobile engineering teams will be able to deploy HMIs which are robust enough to deal with difficult working environments, where they are exposed to dramatic alterations in light levels, while still hitting the necessary price points to ensure economic viability,", states Kristof Lieben, Application Engineer for ToF Systems at Melexis. “The addition of this new evaluation kit, gives engineers the functionality needed to make an initial appraisal of the design set up, so that it can be optimized for the particular surroundings.”

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Sony patent application US20150179693 "Solid-state image sensor, method of producing the same, and electronic apparatus" by Shunsuke Maruyama proposes to move PD into a top laminated layer 47, so that the pixel transistors can be located underneath it. While application talks about 6T global shutter pixel, it's not clear how the transfer gates 22 and 29 are formed in the laminated PD layer 47:


Omnivision patent application US20150179695 "Image sensor pixel for high dynamic range image sensor" by Jeong-ho Lyu and Sohei Manabe proposing the way to have two types of pixels with different light sensitivity while keeping the pixel optics more-less same:


Another Omnivision patent application US20150181187 "Color and Infrared Filter Array Patterns to Reduce Color Aliasing" by Donghui Wu and Ping-Hsu Chen proposes many different patterns, so that one can expect many continuation patents to follow. Here is just one example:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Albert Theuwissen continues is review of IISW 2015 presentations. The latest part talks about Tohoku University, Dartmouth School of Engineering, CEA, Caeleste and ON Semi work on increasing the CG all the way up to 400uV/e- (Caeleste in 0.18um process).

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Albert Theuwissen updates that very few seats remain available on 3D Imaging ToF Forum to be held in Dec. 2015.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

MIT researchers Jie Bao and Moungi G. Bawendi published "A colloidal quantum dot spectrometer" paper in Nature journal. "The new quantum dot spectrometer deploys hundreds of quantum dot materials that each filter a specific set of wavelengths of light. The quantum dot filters are printed into a thin film and placed on top of a photodetector such as the charge-coupled devices (CCDs) found in cellphone cameras." Potentially, a fairly accurate spectrometer can be cheaply created in a compact form.

Here is a example of filters made with this method:


and here is the doublet peaks resolution of the proposed quantum dot spectrometer on the right vs HR2000 spectrometer as a reference on the left:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Sony Seed Acceleration Program, which seeks to fast-track promising new business ideas proposed by Sony employees into full-fledged businesses, unveils "First Flight." First Flight is a new online platform providing an suite of services from crowdfunding to e-commerce in Japan. Kazuo Hirai, Sony President and CEO, says: "Sony's innovation is ingrained in the company's founding spirit of `doing what has never been done before.' Nothing embodies this spirit more than passionate entrepreneurs who give shape to their ground-breaking ideas and introduce them to the world, without fear of failure. The First Flight platform and other Seed Acceleration Program initiatives accelerate and optimize this process. Sony itself originated as a start-up, and through the Seed Acceleration Program we are challenging ourselves to return to our entrepreneurial roots. At Sony we will continue to explore ways of delivering new, emotionally compelling experiences and enhanced customer value."

The fist three projects on the new site are not related to imaging. I wonder if we ever see image sensor crowdfunding projects proposed by Sony employees from image sensor division.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Toshiba publishes a nice Youtube video explaining how PDAF works:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

GlobeNewsWire: Ambarella acquires VisLab S.r.l., a privately held Italian company based in Parma, Italy for $30M in cash. VisLab, the Vision and Intelligent Systems Laboratory at the University of Parma, develops perception systems for autonomous vehicles and was founded by Prof. Alberto Broggi. The company has developed computer vision and intelligent control systems for automotive and other commercial applications, including ADAS and several generations of autonomous vehicle driving systems. These include "Porter," an autonomous vehicle that made a 13,000 km autonomous trip from Italy to China in 2010.

"Computer vision is an area of significant focus for Ambarella, and will be critical to our current video markets, as well as future markets such as automotive OEM cameras," said Fermi Wang, CEO of Ambarella. "We are delighted to welcome Dr. Broggi and the VisLab team to Ambarella to jointly define, develop and deploy future generations of computer vision solutions."

"The unique combination of VisLab's computer vision expertise and Ambarella's high performance, power-efficient video processing technology will enable extremely powerful systems," said Broggi. "We are very pleased to join Ambarella and to realize the full potential of our research and algorithms across a wide range of customers' products."

VisLab's 27 researchers will join Ambarella's advanced computer vision development team, working computer vision for future solutions targeting Ambarella's core markets including automotive, IP security, wearable, and flying cameras.

A Youtube video shows Vislab's driverless car test:



Here is Vislab's hardware inside the driverless car:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

TI publishes fairly detailed datasheets of Softkinetic QVGA OPT8241 ToF sensor and OPT9221 controller chip.


Correction: I have been told that the "chips are based on Softkinetic pixel technology. The chips are made in TI and most of the tech in them belongs to TI."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Videantis published a nice review of Image Sensors Auto conference taken place in Brussels, Belgium last week. Few quotes:

"Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving are huge topics.

When exactly you can buy the first car and use it to go where you want to go is unclear. According to IAV’s talk, Audi plans on 2017, Google 2018, Nissan 2020, Intel 2022, Tesla 2023, and Continental and Daimler say it’ll be in 2025. An IEEE committee has predicted that in 2040 75% of cars on the road will be autonomous.

Volvo said their future cars would have 10 cameras. Already, their current prototype vehicle includes 4 surround cameras, 3 forward-looking cameras, and a driver-monitoring camera."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

CTimes: Powerchip has signed a cooperation agreement with China Anhui Hefei government, to set up a joint venture “Hefei Jinghe”, a 12-inch fab located in Hefei with monthly production capacity of 40,000 wafers, with total investment of 13.53 billion yuan. The new joint venture will have 0.15um, 0.11um and 90nm processes, and will manufacture image sensors, among other things.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

CTimes: Powerchip has signed a cooperation agreement with China Anhui Hefei government, to set up a joint venture “Hefei Jinghe”, a 12-inch fab located in Hefei with monthly production capacity of 40,000 wafers, with total investment of 13.53 billion yuan. The new joint venture will have 0.15um, 0.11um and 90nm processes, and will manufacture image sensors, among other things.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

ESPROS epc660 BSI ToF sensor is probably the world's only ToF device having its detailed datasheet (106 pages) openly available at the company's FTP site.


ESPROS also publishes a Youtube video with a demo of its sensor's capabilities:



Update: Other than the ToF sensor datasheet, ESPROS publishes the detailed board and system design guide, and eye safety analysis.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Reuters: Sony announces its plans to raise $3.6 billion via new shares and bonds to expand stacked image sensor R&D and production. It's Sony's first new share issue in 26 years, worth close to a tenth of its current market value. The company expects to raise 321 billion yen ($2.62 billion) from a public stock offering and a further 119 billion yen from a convertible bond issue to fund a boost in sensor output capacity at its advanced plants in Japan.

For some reason, Sony PR document blocks copy/paste function, so I'm showing a snapshot of it:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

DPReview quotes Business Weekly Taiwan newspaper speculations that the next Apple iPhone might have a dual rear camera, similar to HTC M9+ and Huawei Honor 6+ phones. The original article talks about an interview with Largan CEO Linen Ping and the chances that Largan business would surge in future. No credible source was cited for these rumors.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Glasgow University, UK thesis "Structured Photonic Materials for Multi-Spectral Imaging Applications" by Iain James Hugh McCrindle presents a nice overview of the progress in plasmonic and metamaterials-based color filter designs. There are still not really competitive with pigment-based CFAs, but might improve over time:

Plasmonic CFA response (on planar surface)

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Insights From Leading Edge blog overviews image sensor stacking progress and recent publications. "Given the continued, aggressive stacked CIS development underway from independent device manufacturers (IDM) and foundries it’s predictable that stacked chip adoption will occur very rapidly over the next few years."

Sony ISX014 Stacked dice (Chipworks)

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

It came to my attention that The National Academies Press book "Seeing Photons: Progress and Limits of Visible and Infrared Sensor Arrays" (2010) is available for free download. The authors of the book are stated as Committee on Developments in Detector Technologies, Standing Committee on Technology Insight—Gauge, Evaluate, and Review, and Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences. The book is heavily skewed toward military and space applications:


Talking about the progress of single photon detecting technology, the book has predicted in 2010:


There is also in interesting graph comparing DRAM capacity with imager resolution growth:


and a comparison of LWIR technologies:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Imaging Resource posts a nice compilation of Sony 1-inch sensor 960fps slow motion videos. While other slow motion videos were published in the official RX100 and RX10 Sony playlist, these video clips have long advertisement tails:

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Marketwired: Teledyne Dalsa presents TurboDrive, a proprietary and patent-pending data encoding technology that allows some DALSA GigE Vision cameras to achieve breakthrough speeds, increasing throughput by as much as 150% while retaining 100% image data.

"We're pleased to deliver an innovative speed advantage to customers who need to push beyond the current GigE bandwidth limitations with no loss of data," commented Mark Butler, Product Marketing Manager for Teledyne DALSA, "It's available now in our low-cost Linea line scan cameras, and will continue in future area cameras set to launch in the fall."

The company's technology primer explains how the compression works:

"Leveraging neighborhood effect Image entropy is the first principle used in TurboDrive. But to reduce even further the number of bits required to encode pixel information (with no loss of information), TurboDrive considers the neighborhood effect. The neighborhood of a pixel is the collection of pixels that surround it. Although the exact distance of a neighbor can vary, in this analysis, we will limit our example to the adjacent pixels (i.e. those that directly touch the reference pixel).

For most pixels, there is little pixel to pixel variation and a lot of redundancy. Therefore, it is possible to efficiently use the information of the adjacent pixels to more efficiently encode the reference pixel. One way to see this is looking at a high-pass 2D filter implemented using a convolution. A simple high-pass filter has the sum of all of its coefficients equal to 0. The filter we use in our model has a 3x3 mask and it provides the largest weight to the center pixel.


The result of this filter provides the difference between the reference pixel at the center, and four of its closest neighbor. It can be seen that, for a uniform image, the 9 pixels have the same value and the result out of this filtering operation is 0. Essentially, the less pixel to pixel variation, the smaller the value output by this high-pass filter. One can intuitively understand it takes less bits to encode a small value than to encode a large value. Obviously, it is possible to play with the weights of the 9 filter coefficients of this model to adapt to the image content."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Marketwired: Teledyne Dalsa presents TurboDrive, a proprietary and patent-pending data encoding technology that allows some DALSA GigE Vision cameras to achieve breakthrough speeds, increasing throughput by as much as 150% while retaining 100% image data.

"We're pleased to deliver an innovative speed advantage to customers who need to push beyond the current GigE bandwidth limitations with no loss of data," commented Mark Butler, Product Marketing Manager for Teledyne DALSA, "It's available now in our low-cost Linea line scan cameras, and will continue in future area cameras set to launch in the fall."

The company's technology primer explains how the compression works:

"Leveraging neighborhood effect Image entropy is the first principle used in TurboDrive. But to reduce even further the number of bits required to encode pixel information (with no loss of information), TurboDrive considers the neighborhood effect. The neighborhood of a pixel is the collection of pixels that surround it. Although the exact distance of a neighbor can vary, in this analysis, we will limit our example to the adjacent pixels (i.e. those that directly touch the reference pixel).

For most pixels, there is little pixel to pixel variation and a lot of redundancy. Therefore, it is possible to efficiently use the information of the adjacent pixels to more efficiently encode the reference pixel. One way to see this is looking at a high-pass 2D filter implemented using a convolution. A simple high-pass filter has the sum of all of its coefficients equal to 0. The filter we use in our model has a 3x3 mask and it provides the largest weight to the center pixel.


The result of this filter provides the difference between the reference pixel at the center, and four of its closest neighbor. It can be seen that, for a uniform image, the 9 pixels have the same value and the result out of this filtering operation is 0. Essentially, the less pixel to pixel variation, the smaller the value output by this high-pass filter. One can intuitively understand it takes less bits to encode a small value than to encode a large value. Obviously, it is possible to play with the weights of the 9 filter coefficients of this model to adapt to the image content."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Sharp keeps investing in CCD development, presenting 14 new products and few more marked "under development:"

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Sharp keeps investing in CCD development, presenting 14 new products and few more marked "under development:"

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

ESA Technology Exchange: Pixpolar pixel has been considered for ESA space programs, although the original article only mentions "A Finnish company [that] has developed a new image sensor technology based on patented MIG (Modified Internal Gate) pixel architecture."

"The Company has participated in the development of a silicon drift detector (SDD) for X-ray applications within the TRP activity. The main goal of the project was to introduce extremely low noise SDD macro-pixels for X-ray detection applications. The Company is able to produce very low noise photon detectors for X-ray, visible, UV, near infra-red, and particle detection applications. MIG sensors are ideally suited for Space application as they enable simultaneously asteroid tracking as well as direct detection of planets around stars through continuous readout. Increasing the frame rate does not increase the noise, there are no interface issues, and they are tolerant to radiation damage."

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

Albert Theuwissen continues his IISW review, this time talking about stacked sensors from Omnivision, Sony, Olympus, TSMC, and NHK.

Go to the original article...

Image Sensors World        Go to the original article...

16-megapixel IISW 2015 group picture and few others are posted on the Workshop site. If participants have interesting photos to post they are welcome to email them to jsolhusvik@imagesensors.org to add them to the web page.

Go to the original article...