Friday, June 05, 2015

Jiangsu SmartSens Electronic Technology Co.

It came to my attention that a group of three engineers that "worked for many years in Silicon Valley leader in CMOS image sensor chip technology" has founded Jiangsu SmartSens Electronic Technology Co. in Changshu City, China, in August 2011. The company's about page explains its positioning:

"The company has first-class experts from the field of CMOS image sensor chip technology leader in the Silicon Valley office of the composition. The team members all have not only a doctorate, has a wealth of theoretical knowledge, but also a world-class company after years of working experience in the accumulation and mastered from the imaging system architecture, pixel design, analog circuit design skills to all aspects of digital control, also has first-hand experience in the production and design of the product. The team has applied for and has more than 20 U.S. patents and more than 40 scientific papers, led a dozen leading international product development and design."

The company's products include the following core technologies:

  • Low power consumption: In the current industry, due to the conversion efficiency of solar devices generally not high, huge system equipment, small-scale, small-sized applications still remain in the primary stage. Our solar power system is cleverly designed to get the chip implanted into tiny, effectively improve the conversion rate, low-power chip to achieve security monitoring and even self-supply purposes.
  • High dark light response: dark light, the image quality under low light conditions is another important indicator to measure the image sensing device security monitoring. We will use a double conversion rate of pixels to obtain information and to store different dynamic range. The technology was awarded the 2010 American industry's most famous product design award (EDN's 2010 Annual Innovation Awards).
  • Speed​​: low-noise read our proposed fast parallel system architecture is the world's leading read architecture, not only to meet the current requirements of speed and also saves power and reduces noise, while also selectively read through intelligent control, achieve the double effect.

It looks like somebody has already asked Chipworks to analyse SmartSens' first product - 1.3MP, 4um pixel SC1035 aimed to automotive, security, and surveillance markets:

SmartSens SC1035

Update: As the company English site seems to be off, here is a snapshot of About page, taken from Google cache on June 6, 2015:

21 comments:

  1. I think that they will be sued by Aptina.

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  2. Dark light? I've never heard of it phrased that way. Theories:

    1. Black light - "tricky stuff" from Doctor Who
    2. Related to dark matter - a wave/particle duality

    Joking, but one would think that if they spent any time at all in an imaging company in Silicon Valley as they claim, they would have called it "low light".

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  3. Actually there is a lot of hot money and also stock market bulb. All these opportunist Chinese guys in US companies try to "bring" some technologies back to China in exchange of some personal interests. This is a pitty. I think that a real Chinese origined talent guy has no intention to move to China at this moment, there do be some opportunists who try this kind of immoral operations. This explains some anti-spy actions from US government.
    In this case, they dare to annonce awarded Aptina technology on their site, maybe they think that their will not be accessible from abroad, like a lot of foreign web sites!

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  4. I did access into their website this morning, they have descriptions on products, technology, service, etc. but NO personnel information like CEO, CTO... and now I cannot access into their website anymore! This company really exits ???

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Indeed, it looks like the English version of the site has disappeared. However, the Chinese version exists, and you can use Google translate to get the info:

      http://www.smartsenstech.com/

      The Chinese version of "About" page with most of the info quoted in the post is here:

      http://www.smartsenstech.com/about/gsjs/125.html

      Delete
  5. Ok... I tried it again... Their Chinese version website still exits, but they definitely deleted the English version !!! What kind of company it is ??? I suppose this is a shell company.

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  6. These guys should be careful and they can be arrested by FBI when they come back to US.

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  7. The three founder worked for Aptina before, the CEO worked for OV about 1 year as senior design engineer in 2011.

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    Replies
    1. really? I only found two guys from their company on LinkedIn, one of them claims he is co-founder/manager. according his CV, he never worked for Aptina.

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    2. I think it is a company live on local government's funding, nothing new and no surprise.

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  8. It is actually worse, with the public admission that the company's products include IP from other companies, the owner of the technologyes can seek injunction on or ban the infringing products without stolen IP. The market is none existent outside China.

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  9. Well, you are wrong, nothing gets deleted in internet. You can access the English webpage from Google cache.

    This is the about page of the company:

    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KK1qxa0_d0IJ:www.smartsenstech.com/Eabout/gsjs/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=tr&client=safari

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    Replies
    1. Thanks. I've added the page snapshot to the post as it will disappear from the cache in a couple of days.

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    2. well, that's only cache... if you just google their company namely jiangsu smartsens, none of their english websites is accessible anymore. In addition, on their Chinese version website, the "English" button cannot be clicked.

      Delete
  10. I now understand better why this blog is banned in China.

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  11. Seriously? I did not think this blog is banned in china .This blog is not related to politics,it is just a tech blog.I am come from china,I know someguy work in the west companies and they want to go back to china and set up personal companies .Previouly they have a lot of project experience.Some technologies are developed by them while some are the common work with colleagues.If they bring the original design of companies to china to exchange inverstment ,it is illegal .I feel ashamed for them .But if they only bring their brain, whether it is still deniable? These people who "steal" the technology should be criticized and censured .it did not related to nationnality and gender.

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    Replies
    1. This site is banned in China for sure. Chinese investors think that it could be a shortcut to development technology by using these guys who bring not only their brain. In western countries, you can invest on a Chinese founder but you should be careful when you hire a Chinese origin engineer, especially young guys. It's a pity to say that, but this is a truth.

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  12. This is a wikipedia page describing how internet is regulated in China.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_China
    It has some technical information. Since this blog readers are technically gifted, may be you can figure out whether this blog can be accessed from China.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can give you an answer: since there are some political related blogs hosted by spot.blog.fr, then they simply cut all the site!!!. People can use a special risingwall software to access this site. The Chinese government is like all the dictatorships, they use free-speech here to make their propagande but screen out all the voices from free world.

      Delete
  13. Smartsens 720p sensors have been used by a major surveillance equipment company in China for IP and analog camera products.

    ReplyDelete

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