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Avi Bakal, Trieye CEO & Co-Founder, talks about SWIR imaging in automotive applications:Luca Verre, Prophesee CEO & Co-Founder, talks about event driven vision:
Intel Capital Imaging Portfolio: Trieye SWIR, Prophesee Event-Based Sensor
April 21, 2020 By Leave a Comment
Luca Verre, Prophesee CEO & Co-Founder, talks about event driven vision:
Espros Reviews Ways to Failsafe ToF Imager
April 21, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Espros April Newsletter discusses the ways to failsafe a ToF Camera:Time-of-flight cameras are often used in safety crirical applications, e.g. in anti-collision sensors for robots. It's evident, that the sensor is working correctly or, in case of a malfunction, the control system of the of the robot detects a malfunction. A serious fault in a TOF camera is the failure of one or more pixels of the TOF imager. Whereas a «stuck--at» failure is relatively easy to detect, a floating signal which can randomly take any state is not.
A pixel in an imager can be faulty in a way that it reports any level in grayscale from fully dark to fully bright. This can also be the case in a TOF imager. Thus, in a safety critical application, the distance to an object reported by a pixel is assumed to be wrong. The pixel can report the correct distance within a given tolerance band or any other distance which is not correct. Such behavior is fatal in an anti-collision sensor based on a 3D camera. The question now is, how to detect incorrect distance reporting pixels.
There are several ways to do so:
- Comparison: Comparison of the reported distance with a known distance (comparison). This can be applied e.g. in a door sensor where the sensor looks from top of the door down to the floor.
- Offset: Adding a delay into the illumination path (or the demodulation path) to impose a virtual distance shift. By subtracting the distance shift imposed by the delay, the same or a similar distance as the one without delay should be resulting.
- Scaling: Changing the modulation frequency but not changing the distance calculation parameters accordingly. This is similar like 3., but the distance shift is not fix, it is dependent on the distance value.
- Pattern: By changing the modulation or demodulation pattern, good pixels report the same (correct) distance even in a different phase sequence.
- Fill & Spill: Inject a defined amount of charge into a pixel and check the response of the pixel.
Heliotis White Light Interferometric 3D Sensor
April 21, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Heliotis releases more info about its Series 4 while light interferometric 3D sensor:"It’s basis is a CMOS 2D array in which each individual pixel picks up and processes the optical signal in parallel. In this SmartPixel concept each pixel has an electronic circuit for real-time image processing.
The light reflected by the sample is combined with a reference signal. This results in an interferometric signal from which the desired depth information can be derived mathematically. The system works non-invasively and non-contact in a wide range of objects and materials with a spatial resolution of microns.
The new generation of WLI sensors has been developed from scratch. We put in over 10 years of experience from Series 1, 2 and 3."
Thanks to TL for the info!
Samsung is Aiming for 600MP Sensor, IR, UV, Multispectral
April 21, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Samsung publishes an article "Rivaling the Human Eye: How Samsung is Opening Up the Possibilities for Image Sensor Technology" by Yongin Park, EVP, Head of Sensor Business Team, System LSI Business. Few quotes:"The image sensors we ourselves perceive the world through – our eyes – are said to match a resolution of around 500 megapixels (Mp). Compared to most DSLR cameras today that offer 40Mp resolution and flagship smartphones with 12Mp, we as an industry still have a long way to go to be able to match human perception capabilities.
Aiming for 600Mp for All
To date, the major applications for image sensors have been in the smartphones field, but this is expected to expand soon into other rapidly-emerging fields such as autonomous vehicles, IoT and drones. Samsung is proud to have been leading the small-pixel, high-resolution sensor trend that will continue through 2020 and beyond, and is prepared to ride the next wave of technological innovation with a comprehensive product portfolio that addresses the diverse needs of device manufacturers.
Through relentless innovation, we are determined to open up endless possibilities in pixel technologies that might even deliver image sensors that can capture more detail than the human eye."
Caeleste Proposes "True Charge Domain Binning"
April 21, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Caeleste patents a true charge domain binning method by making a number of pixels “non-collecting”. The photo charge that is not collected by these pixels is then collected by drift or diffusion by the other pixels in the kernel.While other companies might call it blooming, Caeleste implements pixel binning in that same way:
Article on Pixel Scaling: DTI, High-k, 0.6um Pitch, More
April 20, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Semiconductor Engineering site publishes an article "Scaling CMOS Image Sensors" by Mark Lapedus. Few quotes:Recently, vendors have ironed out the issues and the pixel scaling race has resumed. In 2018, Samsung broke the 1µm barrier with 0.9µm, followed by Sony with 0.8µm in 2019, and Samsung with 0.7µm in 2020.
For sub-µm pixel scaling, the industry requires more innovations. “As pixels shrink, thicker active (silicon) is required to maintain a suitable photodiode size,” [TechInsights analyst Ray] Fontaine said in a recent presentation. “A key technology enabler for thicker active (silicon) is DTI and associated high-k defect passivation films.”
Making an image sensor with high-k films follows a traditional flow. What’s different is that high-k films are deposited over the liner in the DTI trenches.
For high-k and other processes, vendors take two different approaches in the fab—front-DTI (F-DTI) and back-DTI (B-DTI). “F-DTI uses a poly silicon gap fill, and the poly can have voltage bias for improved surface pinning. F-DTI can also have more thermal treatment for etch damage leakage reduction,” OmniVision’s [SVP of Process Engineering Lindsay] Grant said. “B-DTI uses high-k films with a negative charge to accumulate charge and pin the Fermi level at the surface, which then suppresses dark-current leakage. The high-k film process is atomic layer deposition (ALD). B-DTI typically uses an oxide gap fill, but some metal fill and even air gap have also been tried and used in mass production.”
Will pixel scaling continue? “It’s likely that pixel scaling will continue beyond 0.7µm,” Grant said. “As pixels shrink beyond 0.7µm, many aspects need to be optimized. Key items, such as B-DTI, high-energy implant for deep diode, optical structure shrink for color and microlens, will remain the focus for development. The more basic design rules that define in-pixel transistors and interconnects need to be updated.”
Another issue is that the pixel pitch for mobile sensors is approaching the wavelength of light. “Some people may consider this a limit for minimum pixel size,” Grant said. “For example, the 0.6µm pixel pitch is used in R&D today. This is smaller than the wavelength of red light at 0.65µm (650nm). So the question may arise, ‘Why shrink to sub-wavelength? Will there be any useful benefit for the camera user? Shrinking the pixel size to sub-wavelength does not mean there is no valuable spatial resolution information at the pixel level.’”
Grant pointed out that the optical structures for a 1.0µm pixel use many sub-wavelength features. “For example, narrow metal grids for crosstalk suppression and narrow dielectric walls for quantum-efficiency are seeing improvement through light guiding. This nano-scale optical engineering is already in current pixels and has been for many years, so moving to sub-wavelength is not such a revolution,” he said. “The limitation for continued shrink may come from the user benefit rather than the technology. Today, applications continue to find end user value in shrinking the pixel size, so this is driving the trend. As long as that continues, CMOS image sensor technology development will support that direction.”
The next big thing is pixel-to-pixel interconnects. Xperi is developing a technology called “3D Hybrid BSI” for pixel-level integration. Sony and OmniVision have demonstrated the technology.
“It enables more interconnects,” said Abul Nuruzzaman, senior director of product marketing at Xperi. “It allows pixel-level interconnect between each pixel of the sensor and an associated A/D converter. This allows parallel A/D conversion for all pixels. The connection provides high-density electrical interconnection between the stacked pixel and logic layers, allowing implementation of as many A/D converters as the number of effective megapixels. Hybrid bonding can also be used to stack memory with dedicated memory to each pixel.”
Samsung ISOCELL Promotional Video, Part 2
April 20, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Samsung publishes a continuation of its ISOCELL promotional video:Fourier Ptychography Introduction
April 20, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Duke University (USA), Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography (The Netherlands), Vrije Universiteit (The Netherlands), and University of Glasgow (UK) publish OSA Optics Express paper "Fourier ptychography: current applications and future promises" by Pavan Chandra Konda, Lars Loetgering, Kevin C. Zhou, Shiqi Xu, Andrew R. Harvey, and Roarke Horstmeyer."Traditional imaging systems exhibit a well-known trade-off between the resolution and the field of view of their captured images. Typical cameras and microscopes can either “zoom in” and image at high-resolution, or they can “zoom out” to see a larger area at lower resolution, but can rarely achieve both effects simultaneously. In this review, we present details about a relatively new procedure termed Fourier ptychography (FP), which addresses the above trade-off to produce gigapixel-scale images without requiring any moving parts. To accomplish this, FP captures multiple low-resolution, large field-of-view images and computationally combines them in the Fourier domain into a high-resolution, large field-of-view result. Here, we present details about the various implementations of FP and highlight its demonstrated advantages to date, such as aberration recovery, phase imaging, and 3D tomographic reconstruction, to name a few. After providing some basics about FP, we list important details for successful experimental implementation, discuss its relationship with other computational imaging techniques, and point to the latest advances in the field while highlighting persisting challenges."
Multispectral Sensor with Hybrid Plasmonic CFA
April 19, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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University of Melbourne and Australian National Fabrication Facility publish AIP paper "A single sensor based multispectral imaging camera using a narrow spectral band color mosaic integrated on the monochrome CMOS image sensor" by Xin He, Yajing Liu, Kumar Ganesan, Arman Ahnood, Paul Beckett, Fatima Eftekhari, Dan Smith, Md Hemayet Uddin, Efstratios Skafidas, Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas, and Ranjith Rajasekharan Unnithan."We demonstrate a single sensor based three band multispectral camera using a narrow spectral band red–green–blue color mosaic in a Bayer pattern integrated on a monochrome CMOS sensor. The narrow band color mosaic is made of a hybrid combination of plasmonic color filters and a heterostructured dielectric multilayer. The demonstrated camera technology has reduced cost, weight, size, and power by almost n times (where n is the number of bands) compared to a conventional multispectral camera."
Canon & EPFL Report Performance of the World’s Smallest 2.2um SPAD Pixel
April 18, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Canon and EPFL publish OSA Optics Express paper "High fill-factor miniaturized SPAD arrays with a guard-ring-sharing technique" by Kazuhiro Morimoto and Edoardo Charbon."We present a novel guard-ring-sharing technique to push the limit of SPAD pixel miniaturization, and to demonstrate the operation of SPAD arrays with a 2.2 µm-pitch, the smallest ever reported. Device simulation and preliminary tests suggest that the optimized device design ensures the electrical isolation of SPADs with guard-ring sharing. 4×4 SPAD arrays with two parallel selective readout circuits are designed in 180 nm CMOS technology. SPAD characteristics for the pixel pitch of 2.2, 3, and 4 µm are systematically measured as a function of an active diameter, active-to-active distance, and excess bias. For a 4 µm-pitch, the fill factor is 42.4%, the maximum PDP 33.5%, the median DCR 2.5 cps, the timing jitter 88 ps, and the crosstalk probability is 3.57%, while the afterpulsing probability is 0.21%. Finally, we verified the feasibility of the proposed technique towards compact multi-megapixel 3D-stacked SPAD arrays."
EPFL & Canon Work Towards 2.2µm-small SPAD Pixels
April 18, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Scitechdaily publishes more info about EPFL and Canon 1MP SPAD sensor:“It’s something I’d been dreaming of for a long time,” says Edoardo Charbon, an EPFL professor and head of the Advanced Quantum Architecture Laboratory in EPFL’s School of Engineering. “MegaX is the culmination of over 15 years of research on single photon avalanche diodes (SPADs), which are photodetectors used in next-generation image-sensor technology.”
“MegaX lets you increase the dynamic range substantially, far beyond what you can do with a high-definition camera,” says Charbon:
The current MegaX camera has 9µm pixels. “Our team is already working on a next-generation MegaX with a pixel size of 2.2 µm,” adds Charbon. “Our goal isn’t necessarily to make MegaX work like a conventional camera, but rather to create a 4D camera” – the three standard dimensions plus time – “with as many pixels as possible, in order to achieve a higher resolution.”
Sony Unveils Two 1080p Sensors for Security Applications
April 18, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Sony adds two 1080p sensors to its lineup for security applications - IMX482 with 5.8um pixels and IMX462 with 2.9um pixels:
Samsung ISOCELL Promotional Video
April 17, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Samsung publishes a promotional video explaining its ISOCELL pixel advantages:Bosch and Sony Security Camera Partnership Ends
April 17, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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SecurityInfoWatch: Less than 4 years after establishing, Bosch and Sony security partnership ends. Danielle VanZandt, industry analyst for security at research firm Frost & Sullivan, says:“While Bosch found ways to keep itself relevant during the rapid rise of Hikvision, Dahua, and Axis Communications by keeping its cameras priced well, feature-rich, and improving image quality, Sony did not appear to follow the same trajectory. Rather, Sony focused more on image quality only and did not seem to consider analytics inclusion or other features that other camera manufacturers moved to include as a new standard. As such, when customers looked between the two brands (even if it was coming from the same sales force), Bosch cameras would win out due to these additional features and sometimes replace Sony cameras within existing deployments.”
This is quite a strange statement, considering that at the time of the partnership establishment, the companies' joint PR stated:
"Within the scope of the partnership, Sony will bring its leading expertise in video image quality and performance, while Bosch will add an extensive set of robust video analytics at the edge to interpret data as well as innovative technologies to achieve highly efficient bitrates and minimum storage requirements. "This partnership will revolutionize the video security industry since it combines the unique technological expertise and strengths of two leading companies in the field of video security applications. Customers can prosper from Sony's superior image quality, like its 4K solutions, combined with Bosch's bitrate management and video analytics," says Toru Katsumoto, Deputy President of Imaging Products and Solutions, Sector President of Professional Products Group, Sony Corporation."
SecurityToday reports that Sony exits the branded security camera business.
Polight Closes $3.84M Investment, Plans Another $960K
April 17, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Polight announces that it has raised approximately NOK 40M (approx $3.84M) through a private placement. The Private Placement took place through an accelerated bookbuilding process managed by ABG Sundal Collier ASA and Arctic Securities AS as joint bookrunners. The net proceeds from the Private Placement will be used to finance further growth of the Company and general corporate purposes.The company also plans a subsequent offering of up to approximately NOK 10M at the same subscription price as in the Private Placement.
EPIC Zoom Meeting on Automotive LiDAR
April 17, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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EPIC Photonics publishes an online meeting on automotive LiDAR including presentations from Ibeo, LeddarTech, JENOPTIK, Light Tec, imec, SMART Photonics, and Hamamatsu:EPFL and Canon 1MP SPAD Imager
April 16, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Phys.org publishes an article about ELPF and Canon paper in OSA Optica "Megapixel time-gated SPAD image sensor for 2D and 3D imaging applications" by Kazuhiro Morimoto, Andrei Ardelean, Ming-Lo Wu, Arin Can Ulku, Ivan Michel Antolovic, Claudio Bruschini, and Edoardo Charbon. A similar paper has been posted in Arxiv.org a couple of months ago."Thanks to its high resolution and ability to measure depth, this new camera could make virtual reality more realistic and let you interact with augmented reality information in a more seamless manner," said Edoardo Charbon from the Advanced Quantum Architecture Laboratory (AQUALab) at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.
"For transportation applications, this new camera could help achieve unprecedented levels of autonomy and safety by enabling multiple low-power LiDAR devices to be used on a vehicle, providing fast, high-resolution 3-D view of the surroundings," said first author, Kazuhiro Morimoto from Canon Inc. in Japan. "In a somewhat more distant future, quantum communication, sensing and computing could all benefit from photon-counting cameras with multi-megapixel resolution."
Epic Zoom Meeting on IR Imaging in Security and Surveillance
April 16, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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EPIC meetings switched over to an online format. The first meeting include presentations from IRnova, Lynred, Leonardo, MBDA, FLIR, Lambda-X, ACM Coatings, Emberion, and Asphericon:Google Explains Depth Engine in Pixel 4 Smartphone
April 15, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Google explains depth sensing in its Pixel 4 smartphone:"To deal with textureless regions and cope with low-light conditions, we make use of an “active stereo” setup, which projects an IR pattern into the scene that is detected by stereo IR cameras. This approach makes low-texture regions easier to identify, improving results and reducing the computational requirements of the system.
Stereo sensing systems can be extremely computationally intensive, and it’s critical that a sensor running at 30Hz is low power while remaining high quality. uDepth leverages a number of key insights to accomplish this.
we apply a novel technique for neural depth refinement to support the regular grid pattern illuminator on the Pixel 4. Typical active stereo systems project a pseudo-random grid pattern to help disambiguate matches in the scene, but uDepth is capable of supporting repeating grid patterns as well. Repeating structure in such patterns produces regions that look similar across stereo pairs, which can lead to incorrect matches. We mitigate this issue using a lightweight (75k parameter) convolutional architecture, using IR brightness and neighbor information to adjust incorrect matches — in less than 1.5ms per frame."
In the end, Google gives a couple of examples of depth-enabled photography features:
Interview about Intel Realsense Indoor LiDAR
April 15, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Framos publishes an interview with Brian Pruitt, Director of Product & Partner Marketing at Intel responsible for Intel RealSense product line. The L515 is the first camera in the Intel LiDAR camera family launched in Q4 2019:Eye Tracking Tutorial
April 14, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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Edge AI and Vision Alliance publishes May 2019 tutorial "Eye Tracking for the Future: The Eyes Have It" by Peter Milford, President of Parallel Rules. One of the key takeaways is that eye tracking is not ready for mass market consumer applications:
Why MCT APDs Do Not Have Excess Noise
April 14, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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2009 presentation "Electron- and Hole- Avalanche HgCdTe Photodiode Arrays for Astronomy" by Donald N. B. Hall from Teledyne and University of Hawaii gives one of the best explanations of nearly noiseless avalanche multiplication in MCT materials:
Why MCT APDs Do Not Have Excess Noise
April 14, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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2009 presentation "Electron- and Hole- Avalanche HgCdTe Photodiode Arrays for Astronomy" by Donald N. B. Hall from Teledyne and University of Hawaii gives one of the best explanations of nearly noiseless avalanche multiplication in MCT materials:IR Photodetectors Comparison
April 13, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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2017 Nanophotonics issue feantures an paper "Emerging technologies for high performance infrared detectors" by Chee Leong Tan and Hooman Mohseni from Northwestern University, Evanstone, IL. It quotes an excellent specific detectivity comparison chart of most of the available IR detectors together with D* limits of the ideal photodiode, photoconductor, and bolometer (quoted from Rogalski A. History of infrared detectors. Optoelectron Rev 2012;20:279–308.)
PrimeNano Pixel Analysis
April 13, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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PrimeNano uses pixels as a demo of capabilities of its analytical instruments:
The company also re-publishes 2015 Chipworks paper on using sMIM technique for doping analysis:
"Scanning microwave impedance microscopy (sMIM) is a new scanning probe microscopy (SPM) technique that replaces traditional scanning capacitance microscopy (SCM). Like SCM, the new sMIM technique reveals information on the implanted dopant structures of a semiconductor device. The sMIM technology provides the traditional dC/dV SCM images, which give insight into the dopant types and the positions of junction, while also providing several other channels of information, including sMIM-C and sMIM-R. The sMIM-C signal is proportional to the permittivity/capacitance variation, which, for semiconducting samples, depends on the carrier concentration, since highly doped materials will give lower capacitance for the tip-sample contact than low doped materials. The sMIM-R channel provides information about the conductivity of the sample."
Chinese Face Recognition Startup Raises $141M
April 12, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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BiometricUpdate reports that Shenzhen, China-based startup Intellifusion raises $141M. The security solutions is an area of intensive investment in China. Intellifusion is a 6-year old company and plans an IPO in the near future. The investors are a mix of Chinese and international VCs.
SK Hynix CIS Promotional Video
April 11, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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SK Hynix publishes a video promoting its image sensors:Waymo 5th Gen AV Features 29 Cameras and 5 LiDARs
April 10, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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EETimes Junko Yoshida publishes a review of Waymo Driver presentation by YooJung Ahn, head of design at Waymo. The new AV platform features 29 cameras and 5 LiDARs:
ON Semi Video on Low Power Sensor
April 10, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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ON Semi video talks about its ARX3A0 560x560 pixel sensor consuming 3mW at 1fps:Goodix Ultra-Thin Optical Fingerprint Sensor Reverse Engineered
April 10, 2020 By Leave a Comment
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SystemPlus publishes a reverse engineering report of the new Goodix optical fingerprint sensor:"With more than 120 designs in several flagships on the market, Goodix this year offers a new version of the fingerprint sensor. It’s called the ultra-thin in-display optical fingerprint sensor, and it uses a micro lens design instead of optical lenses. The sensor is located on the front of the device, directly under the glass display and the organic light emitting diode (OLED) material.
The sensor is manufactured from a Front-Side Illumination CMOS Image Sensor (FSI-CIS), with an on-chip Near InfraRed (NIR) filter, collimator and Micro Lens Array (MLA). The component also includes features to provide a small gap between the CIS and the OLED material.
Since the last version of the device, Goodix made several changes at the optical level but also at the integrated circuit (IC) level. Indeed, the sensor doesn’t require any additional circuits besides the sensor IC. Power management and signal processing rely on the main board chipset."
