Sony Global Shutter CMOS Sensor Features in Video

Point Grey published a nice Youtube video presenting the newly announced Sony IMX174 global shutter sensor and its spec. Point Grey appears to be the early adapter of the sensor, as it already used in its Grasshopper camera. The key specs are:

• DR - 73dB
• Peak QE @ 525nm - over 70%
• Read noise - 6e-

Thanks to MJ for the link!

At ISSCC 2012, Sony presented a 5MP, 5.86um pixel sensor with global shutter that looks quite similar to IMX174 in terms of pixel technology, albeit resolution, frame rate and other parameters are not the same:

"An 83dB-dynamic-range single-exposure global-shutter CMOS image sensor with in-pixel dual storage"
by Sakakibara, M. ; Oike, Y. ; Takatsuka, T. ; Kato, A. ; Honda, K. ; Taura, T. ; Machida, T. ; Okuno, J. ; Ando, A. ; Fukuro, T. ; Asatsuma, T. ; Endo, S. ; Yamamoto, J. ; Nakano, Y. ; Kaneshige, T. ; Yamamura, I. ; Ezaki, T. ; Hirayama, T.

Ziptronix Sells its Development Lab to Tezzaron

Marketwired: Ziptronix announces an agreement with Tezzaron Semiconductor and Novati Technologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tezzaron, to sell its 3D IC development lab to Tezzaron, to be operated by Novati. Due to widespread adoption of direct bonding in volume manufacturing, Ziptronix no longer has to dedicate its resources to supporting a lab for commercialization of its patented ZiBond and DBI technologies. The deal includes a strategic agreement with Tezzaron that provides Ziptronix's lab customers continued access to the facility.

Triange Business Journal adds that Novati takes over 11 Ziptronix employees. The six remaining Ziptronix staffers moved from the lab with the headquarters in Raleigh, NC. Ziptronix's work will still be conducted at the facility as part of the deal. The 11 employees will continue "to do what they always did, but they’re working for Novati."

"ZiBond has been in high-volume manufacturing for several years now and DBI is well on its way into production," said Dan Donabedian, CEO of Ziptronix. "Quite simply, as the market is now convinced of the value of our technology, our needs have shifted. As we look to accelerate 3D integration, our focus is increasingly on addressing the needs of the maturing and emerging markets that are adopting our technology via licensing."

Ziptronix's DBI (Direct Bond Interconnect) is said to achieve over 100,000,000 electrical connections per square centimeter; a significant increase over the ~100,000 connections per square centimeter density achieved with through-die vias used in other 3D interconnect approaches. DBI is said to be considered by several manufacturers of next generation image sensors to directly connect control electronics and memory to the pixel sensing layer. This can enable direct control of the individual pixel with extremely short connections.

THine Announces 16MP ISP

Business Wire: Tokyo, Japan-based THine announces a superior cost-performance ISP THP7312 supporting up to 16MP cameras, such as smartphones, in-vehicle cameras, drive recorders, security cameras, network cameras, and sports cameras. "It can generate superior quality images for each CMOS image sensor, since THine has collaborated with major sensor makers."

THP7312 offers video image stabilizer function, HDR in full HD video and stills modes and simultaneous capturing of still images and movie images. Because of no need of internal frame memories, THP7312 is suitable for battery-operated handsets, realizing small size, lower power consumption, and higher speed.

THP7312 supports not only RGB but also IR. This new feature enables to offer additional performance for such applications as health-care or beauty-care application for smartphones, drive recorders in night scene, or security cameras that require gesture or pattern recognition under insufficient light. THine offers an auto-defogging image function for drive recorders to read and save front vehicles’ number plate more clearly in PM2.5 or fogging environment.

THine will deliver the samples from December 2013, with mass production starting in Q2, 2014.

PMD Announces nimble UX Gesture Middleware

PMD announces nimble UX - its first gesture recognition middleware solution in combination with the CamBoard pico. nimble UX is a developer package for OEMs and ODMs for consumer, automotive and industrial use cases. It includes:

• pmd depth sensing camera (which is the CamBoard pico for now but can also be a mass market OEM module in the future)
• nimble pmd - gesture middleware (SDK) which the customer can use to implement his own gesture controlled application. There are predefined gestures available and customized gestures can be defined based on the SDK.
• nimble dashboard - an implementaton of Windows 8 gesture control, based on the nimble pmd gesture middleware.

The advantages of nimble UX over competitive solutions are:

• it delivers a full 3D hand model, not just fingertips or orientation.
• it enables convenient interaction with a user´s arms comfortably resting on the desk. The user is not required to lift the complete arm to start interacting. This lowers the switching cost between standard interaction and touchless interaction.
• can handle self occlusions of hands/fingers

nimble UX development kits will be available in limited quantities upon request, starting in January 2014 (after CES 2014). A Youtube video shows nimble UX capabilities:

Full Well Capacity Measurements & Interpretations

Albert Theuwissen continues his series of posts "How to Measure Full Well Capacity". The recent post discusses various discrepancies, such as why a full well from linearity measurements can differ from the one derived from variance measurements.

Ambarella Sales, Profits Rise

Gobenewswire: Ambarella announces its quarterly results. Revenue for the quarter was $46.0M, up 29% from $35.7M a year ago. For the nine months ended October 31, 2013, revenue was $117.6M, up 31% from $89.5M for the nine months ended October 31, 2012. GAAP gross margin was 63.7%, compared with 64.5% for the same period a year ago. Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter were $128.1M.

Determine Sensor Format from Web-Sized Picture

Reddit user Mike Cialowicz runs an interesting experiment: can you guess the image sensor format of a web-sized picture by looking at it? Over the last 13 hours the results are not that far from 50-50:

Hynix Samples 1.12um BSI Sensors

Hynix image sensor catalog for Q4'13 lists three sensors with 1.12um BSI pixels as sampling:

Image Sensors 2014 Conference Agenda Finalized

Image Sensors 2014 to be held on March 18-20, 2014 in London, UK has published a final program:

The Future of CMOS Imaging
Howard Rhodes, CTO, Omnivision

The Megapixel Story - a decade to 2014 and beyond
Juha Alakarhu, Head of Imaging Technology at Nokia, Finland

Post-capture image manipulation and colour management
Sylvain Paris, Researcher - Advanced Technology Labs, Adobe, US

Extremely low crosstalk and high SNR technology in small size pixel CMOS image sensor
JunChak Ahn, Principal Engineer, Samsung, Korea

Evolution of 3D integration for CMOS image sensors
Lindsay Grant, Imaging Division Process Manager, ST Microelectronics, UK

What can the foundry contribute to advanced image sensor design and manufacture?
Guenther Ernst, CEO, L-Foundry Germany

What do consumers really want from gesture control, and what are the technology routes to getting there?
Jochen Penne, Director BU Consumer & New Technologies, PMD Technologies, Germany

Evaluating the feasibility of gesture control technologies and integration into consumer applications
Ravi Ayyagari, General Manager (Imaging), Texas Instruments, India

2D solutions for gesture recognition
Speaker TBC

Evaluation of different global shutter image sensor technologies
Dr Manuel Innocent, Design Engineer, ON Semiconductor, Belgium

Developments in voltage domain global shutter technologies and wider trends
Guy Meynants, CTO, CMOSIS, Belgium

Innovation in charge domain global shutter technologies
Shoji Kawahito, Professor, Brookman Technology / Shizuoka University, Japan

Overview of imaging in automotive - history and current state of play
Patrick Denny, Senior Research Engineer, Valeo Systems, Ireland

OEM perspective #1 - drivers for adoption of imaging systems in mainstream automotive applications
Martin Edney, Lead System Engineer, Jaguar Land Rover, UK

Tier 1 perspective - supply chain challenges, balancing end user needs with technology capabilities
Hamma Tadjine, Technical Consultant, VW / Senior Project Manager, IAV, Germany

Sensor producer perspective - specific developments requirements for automotive, challenges
Speaker TBC

OEM perspective #2 - future requirements and trends for automotive imaging
Speaker TBC

The future of high-speed imaging - technology, applications and challenges
Takeharu Etoh, Ritsumeikan University, Japan

Progress with artificial retina technology and applications
Professor Jun Ohta, Professor at Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan

Latest developments for plastic electronics in image sensor applications
Laurent Jamet, Co-Founder, Business Development, ISORG, France

Backside illuminated imagers, embedded CCD in CMOS based imagers and hyperspectral imagers
Piet De Moor, Program Manager for Optical Sensors, IMEC, Belgium

Future requirements in broadcast imaging
Richard Salmon, Lead Research Engineer, BBC Research & Development, UK

More pixels or more than pixels? The future of semiconductor photosensing
Peter Seitz, Managing Director, Hamamatsu Photonics Innovation Center Europe, Switzerland

There are also two workshops on the first day:

A Million Images per Second and Beyond
Renato Turchetta, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
plus guest speakers.

What on earth shall I do with all these pixels?
Albert Theuwissen, Harvest Imaging

TA Associates to Acquire CMOSIS

Business Wire: TA Associates, a global growth private equity firm, has agreed to acquire CMOSIS. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. CMOSIS employs over 60 people and is based in Antwerp, Belgium.

With financial backing and support from Capital-E Arkiv, CMOSIS was founded in November 2007. CMOSIS broadened its capital base and raised further growth capital in 2009 from ING Corporate Investments (Belgium); ING Activator Fund, the Arkimedes Investment Fund of ING Belgium investing in promising Flemish SMEs; and Participatiemaatschapij Vlaanderen (PMV).

Luc De Mey, Chairman and CEO of CMOSIS, commented: "This transaction will allow CMOSIS to continue growing as an independent company with the support of TA Associates, a strong financial partner that has an impressive track record in building technology companies and is committed to supporting our future growth. I would like to take the opportunity to thank Capital-E, ING and PMV for their strong support in growing CMOSIS."

J. Morgan Seigler, a Principal at TA Associates (UK), LLP who will join the company’s Board of Directors, commented: "The CMOSIS management team has demonstrated expertise in building image sensor businesses. We are excited to partner with such experienced and successful entrepreneurs. CMOSIS is profitable, with a highly reputable brand, attractive client base, and impressive and accelerating growth."

Ajit Nedungadi, a Managing Director at TA Associates (UK), LLP who will also join the company’s Board of Directors, commented: "CCD has traditionally been the dominant technology in the high-end image sensor market that CMOSIS serves. The migration to CMOS is being driven by a lower cost of manufacturing, lower power requirements, higher speeds and improved sensor resolution. This accelerating market shift should continue to prove favorable for CMOSIS."