Business Wire: TowerJazz and the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI), a non-profit government-funded research institute in Republic of Korea, announce an on-going collaboration which has led to successful development of a X-Ray image sensor which is ready for the commercial market.
Since 2009, TowerJazz has partnered with KERI to provide pixel IP, special R&D assistance and other support. The global X-ray equipment market for medical, dental and veterinary applications reached the $10 billion mark in 2012 and should increase by 18% to $12 billion by 2017, according to IMS Research. KERI already has agreements with various commercial companies for technology transfer and detailed plans are under discussion now. KERI expects mass production to begin in 2015 for this CMOS image sensor and expected sales revenue could easily reach over $10M per year once ramp up occurs.
“With the great support of TowerJazz, our image sensor is ready to be commercialized. Since the beginning, TowerJazz has been supporting and encouraging us throughout the development process by providing specialized technical service and prompt response from on-site experts with diverse experience. We will maintain our strong relationship while starting production in the coming year for this product and we look forward to future cooperation at TowerJazz’s 12” fab in Japan through TowerJazz Panasonic Semiconductor Co.,” said Dr. Sung Chae Jeon, Principal Research Engineer, KERI.
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ReplyDeleteactive pixel sensor (APS)-based X-ray imaging detectors with high spatial resolution for medical imaging application. In this study, our proposed X-ray CMOS imaging sensor has been fabricated by using a 0.35 μm 1 Poly 4 Metal CMOS process. The pixel size is 100 μm×100 μm and the pixel array format is 24×96 pixels, which provide a field-of-view (FOV) of 9.6 mm×2.4 mm. The 14.3-bit extend counting analog-to digital converter (ADC) with built-in binning mode was used to reduce the area and simultaneously improve the image resolution. Both thallium-doped CsI (CsI:Tl) and Gd2O2S:Tb scintillator screens were used as converters for incident X-rays to visible light photons. The optical property and X-ray imaging characterization such as X-ray to light response as a function of incident X-ray exposure dose, spatial resolution and X-ray images of objects were measured under different X-ray energy conditions. The measured results suggest that our developed CMOS-based X-ray imaging detector has the potential for fluoroscopic imaging and cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) imaging applications.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013NIMPA.731..315C