Thursday, February 03, 2011

Pyxalis - New Image Sensor Company Established

As somebody mentioned in comments, there is a new image sensor company founded in August 2010 - Pyxalis. The company is located in Grenoble area, France. The company's core team came from Atmel/e2v:


The company is led by Philippe Rommeveaux, a former e2v Imaging Business Unit director (80 people, revenue 50M€). Pyxalis offers custom design services and has expertize in HDR sensors, smart sensors, pixels with global shutter, high-speed imaging with ADC resolution up to 14-bit, low-light and large sensors (up to 1 die per wafer).

22 comments:

  1. Cool.

    Have any readers here previously done any projects with the company and/or with the founders, and would you recommend them?

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  2. I've heard good words about Atmel/e2v team technical capabilities, although I've never directly worked with them.

    I wonder if their decision to leave e2v and found Pyxalis has any connection to e2v layoffs over a year ago:

    http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2009/11/e2v-layoffs.html

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  3. What part spun out and what is left at e2v ? This sounds like possibly a weakening of both teams. Both claiming the same heritage. Was this spinout desired/ supported by e2v?
    Anyway, interesting to see the turbulence in imaging companies lately.

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  4. I do think that they have to find an agreement for all the IP issues. It could be a little bit complex.

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  5. We've done business with the e2v team in the past, and will continue to do so with the spin-off, which for my feeling, is a plus. Without going into details I ensure that I can only highly recommend the new team, very experienced, innovative and professional.

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  6. if so why e2v(ATMEL) CMOS sensors can not success in the past? They have started CMOS sensor very early since maybe 1995.

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  7. @ We've done business. Great anonymous plug from one of the e2v folks.

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  8. Atmel got into image sensors after licensing a design from Photobit but it was a few years after 1995. Funny, I don't recall too much about the whole Atmel deal but I do remember taking several trips to visit with the Atmel brothers whose names I also forget.
    Dan McGrath went to work for Atmel around that time to support Atmel's effort and he might remember. Intel, Kodak, Atmel, Motorola...ghosts from the past!

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  9. The Perlegos brothers. That was it.
    http://www.cio.com/article/23711/Atmel_Fires_Founder_3_Other_Execs

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  10. Eric has not a high estimate to these guys???

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  11. I have no opinion about Atmel and its management. We were happy for their business. It is certainly a sad day when you are pushed out of the company you founded for wahtever reason. Happened to the Parkinson brothers at Micron as well.

    I hope Pyxalis does well.

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  12. And it happened to Dr. Fossum at Micron. Howard forced him out.

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  13. ha ha ha! Good one. No, I resigned for several reasons. Not the least of which is it is very difficult to go from head honcho to worker bee after you sell your company, especially when you no longer need to work to be comfortable in life. I heard this is common for most entrepreneurs.

    Also, while we have different management styles, I will say Howard Rhodes is perhaps the best process engineer I have ever worked with.

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  14. Typically when they want you to leave, they give you the low-level position so that you can resign. It sounds better for both sides. It is good that you are comfortable so that you can still attend the expensive conferences like ISSCC when you are not affiliated with another org.

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  15. Eric sent some terse emails around about the kind of experiments being done at Micron. It rubbed management the wrong way and everyone felt better having him leave.

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  16. @ various anon
    I am known to differ opinion with Eric on several topics, but this is just a ridiculous set of irrelevant ad-hominem attacks.

    -wiki-

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  17. It is tedious to have some anonymous troll constantly nipping at your heels. But I accept my inadvertent role as lightning rod.

    Meanwhile, troll, if you are going to weave together some disinformation fantasy based on a loose collection of half-true, half-false "facts" (the best kind of disinformation), at least try to make up a consistent fantasy.

    It would be better if you could drop your obsession with me and stalk someone else, eh? Constantly turning every possible thread here into an attack on me is probably not achieving your goals.

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  18. To everyone else, I am sorry to waste your time on these matters. I will try harder to ignore the troll in the future.

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  19. @ various anon, Eric is an important part of image sensor development over the years. This was actually an interesting thread. I had wondered what happened after photobit was acquired. Eric really got the whole thing going.

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  20. Coming back to Pyxalis, thanks to Eric for having added us on the Image Sensor Company list.
    In term of update, so far so good for Pyxalis: after roughly 5 months of existence, we're looking for additional skilled people to grow and complete our experienced and really nice Team. Do not hesitate to have a look at our website: www.pyxalis.com
    PhR

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  21. Hi Philippe,
    Good luck and all the best for this new 'aventure'. S. Mougin

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