LiDAR News: Levandowski, Aeva, DENSO, Ouster, Outsight, Argo, Valeo, Hyundai, Velodyne

World IP Review: The outgoing Trump administration has granted a full pardon to Anthony Levandowski, the former LiDAR head at Waymo, sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing trade secrets.

In a memo, released on January 20, 2021, the administration says Levandowski “paid a significant price for his actions and plans to devote his talents to advance the public good.”

It also cited a quote from the sentencing judge in the case in which he described Levandowski as a “brilliant, groundbreaking engineer that our country needs.”

BusinessWire: Ouster and Outsight partner on the first integrated solution in the lidar industry with embedded pre-processing software. This plug-and-play system is designed to deliver real-time, processed 3D data and designed to be integrated into any application within minutes. The solution combines Ouster’s high-resolution digital lidar sensors with Outsight’s perception software which detects, classifies, and tracks objects without relying on machine learning.

Reuters: DENSO partners with Aeva to develop next-generation sensing and perception systems. Together, the companies will advance FMCW LiDAR and bring it to the mass vehicle market.

MSN, GroundTruthAutonomy: Argo.ai presents its new platform featuring 6 LiDARs and 11 cameras. Some of the versions even have a multi-storied LiDAR pyramid on the roof:

ETNews reports that Hyundai is contemplating using Valeo SCALA LiDAR in its first autonomous vehicle scheduled to release in 2022. The reason for choosing Valeo is quite interesting:

"This decision is likely based on the fact that Velodyne has yet to reach a level to mass-produce LiDAR sensors even though it is working with Hyundai Mobis, which invested $54.3 million (60 billion KRW) in Velodyne, on the development. 

Velodyne received an $50 million investment (3% stake) from Hyundai Mobis back in 2019. Although it stands at the top of the global market for LiDAR sensors, a supply of automotive LiDAR sensors for a research and development purpose is its only experience with automotive LiDAR sensors. It is reported that it has yet to reach Hyundai Motor Group’s requests due to its lack of experience with mass-production of automotive LiDAR sensors. Although it was planning to supply LiDAR sensors that will be used for a level 3 autonomous driving system, its plan is now facing a setback.

Velodyne is currently working with Hyundai Mobis at Hyundai Mobis’s Technical Center of Korea in Mabuk and is focusing on securing its ability to mass-produce automotive LiDAR sensors while having the sensors satisfy reliability that future cars require. The key is for Velodyne to minimize any different in qualities between products during mass-production

Valeo is the only company in the world that has succeeded in mass-producing automotive LiDAR sensors. It supplied “SCALA Gen. 1” to Audi for Audi’s full-size sedan “A8”. SCALA Gen. 1 is a 4-channel LiDAR sensor and it has a detection range of about 150 meters."

International Image Sensor Society on LinkedIn

International Image Sensor Society (IISS) has opened a LinkedIn page. Please feel free to follow to be updated about the latest events and announcements:

12-ps Resolution Vernier Time-to-Digital Converter for SPAD Sensor

MDPI paper "A 13-Bit, 12-ps Resolution Vernier Time-to-Digital Converter Based on Dual Delay-Rings for SPAD Image Sensor" by Zunkai Huang, Jinglin Huang, Li Tian,Ning Wang, Yongxin Zhu, Hui Wang, and Songlin Feng from Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, presents a fairly complex pixel.

"In this paper, we propose a novel high-performance TDC for a SPAD image sensor. In our design, we first present a pulse-width self-restricted (PWSR) delay element that is capable of providing a steady delay to improve the time precision. Meanwhile, we employ the proposed PWSR delay element to construct a pair of 16-stages vernier delay-rings to effectively enlarge the dynamic range. Moreover, we propose a compact and fast arbiter using a fully symmetric topology to enhance the robustness of the TDC. To validate the performance of the proposed TDC, a prototype 13-bit TDC has been fabricated in the standard 0.18-µm complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) process. The core area is about 200 µm × 180 µm and the total power consumption is nearly 1.6 mW. The proposed TDC achieves a dynamic range of 92.1 ns and a time precision of 11.25 ps. The measured worst integral nonlinearity (INL) and differential nonlinearity (DNL) are respectively 0.65 least-significant-bit (LSB) and 0.38 LSB, and both of them are less than 1 LSB. The experimental results indicate that the proposed TDC is suitable for SPAD-based 3D imaging applications."

WDR Sensor with Binary Image Feature

IET Electronics Letters publishes a paper "CMOS image sensor for wide dynamic range feature extraction in machine vision" by Hyeon‐June Kim from Kangwon National University, Korea.

"The proposed pixel structure has two operating modes, the normal and WDR modes. In the normal operating mode, the proposed CIS captures a normal image with high sensitivity. In addition, as a unique function, a bi‐level image is obtained for real‐time FE even if a pixel is saturated in strong illumination conditions. Thus, compared to typical CISs for machine vison, the proposed CIS can reveal object features that are blocked by light in real time. In the WDR operating mode, the proposed CIS produces a WDR image with its corresponding bi‐level image. A prototype CIS was fabricated using a standard 0.35‐μm 2P4M CMOS process with a 320 × 240 format (QVGA) with 10‐μm pitch pixels. At 60 fps, the measured power consumption was 5.98 mW at 3.3 V for pixel readout and 2.8 V for readout circuitry. The dynamic range of 73.1 dB was achieved in the WDR operating mode."

Smartsens Released More than 30 Tapeouts in 2020

Smartsens reports that it has released more than 30 tapeouts in 2020 or one tapeout every 12 days, on average. The company also won the "Unicorn Enterprise of the Year Award" from 2021 China Semiconductor Investment Alliance Annual Conference and China IC Billboard:

CMOS Sensors Design with Synopsys Custom Compiler

While most of analog design in the industry is done with Cadence EDA tools, Imasenic CTO Adria Bofill Petit presents an alternative path with Synopsys Custom Compiler:

Call for Papers for Special Issue of 2022 IEEE TED on Solid-State Image Sensors

Over the last decade, solid-state image sensors have sustained impressive technological developments as well as growth in existing markets such as camera phones, automotive cameras, security and industrial cameras and medical/scientific cameras. This has included:

• sub-micron pixels,
• high dynamic range sensors for automotive and machine vision,
• time-of- flight sensors for 3D imaging,
• 3-dimensional integration (wafer level stacking) for small and efficient imaging systems on a chip,
• sub-electron read noise pixels and avalanche photodetectors for single-photon imaging,
• detector structures for non-cooled infrared imaging,
• and many others.

Solid-state image sensors are also taking off into new applications and markets (IoT, 3D imaging, medical, biometrics and others). Solid-state image sensors are now key components in a vast array of consumer and industrial products. This special issue will provide a focal point for reporting these advancements in an archival journal and serve as an educational tool for the solid-state image sensor community. Previous special issues on solid-state image sensors were published in 1968, 1976, 1985, 1991, 1997, 2003, 2009 and 2016.

• Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Pixel device physics (New devices and structures, Advanced materials, Improved models and scaling, Advanced pixel circuits, Performance enhancement for QE, Dark current, Noise, Charge Multiplication Devices, etc.)
• Image sensor design and performance (New architectures, Small pixels and Large format arrays, High dynamic range, 3D range capture, Low voltage, Low power, High frame rate readout, Scientific-grade, Single-Photon Sensitivity)
• Image-sensor-specific peripheral circuits (ADCs and readout electronics, Color and image processing, Smart sensors and computational sensors, System on a chip)
• Non-visible “image” sensors (Enhanced spectral response e.g., UV, NIR, High energy photon and particle detectors e.g., electrons, X-rays, Ions, Hybrid detectors, THz imagers)
• Stacked image sensor architectures, fabrication, packaging and manufacturing (two or more tiers, back-side illuminated devices)
• Miscellaneous topics related to image sensor technology

Submission deadline: July 30, 2021

Publication date: June 2022

GEO Semi Reports the 250 Automotive OEM Design Win Milestone

BusinessWire: GEO Semiconductor announces surpassing a major milestone for the company, 250 Automotive OEM design wins. These camera video processor (CVP) design wins represent engagements with over 30 different Tier 1 suppliers, and over a dozen of the world’s top automotive OEMs. 

“GEO released it’s first automotive product in 2015 and made the strategic decision to exclusively develop CVPs for automotive from that point forward. In the past 5 years we leveraged our world class team, our focused product strategy, and our customers to propel us to grow to the position of market leadership.” said Dave Orton, GEO Semiconductor CEO. “The world’s leading automotive companies chose GEO due to our camera, video, and computer vision expertise, and our ability to provide timely cutting edge solutions for these complex applications.”

 

Bucket-Brigade Device Inventor Kees Teer Passed Away at the Age of 95

ED: A former Philips Research Labs head Kees Teer passed away at the age of 95. Kees was the inventor of a bucket-brigate device, the predecessor of the CCD.

Smartsens Claims #1 Spot in CIS Volume for Machine Vision Applications

Smartsens publishes a promotional video on global shutter advantages where it claims to be #1 in terms of machine vision image sensors shipment volume:

Update: Smartsens has updated the video with explanations on of the machine vision market positioning:

Samsung Aims to Take a Lead on Automotive CIS Market

PulseNews reports that, currently, Samsung market share in automotive image sensors is only 2%, after ON Semi, Omnivision, and Sony. Samsung intends to increase it and take a lead in automotive sensors.