Monday, April 30, 2012
Evolution of CMOS Imaging Technology by DALSA
DALSA published white paper "The Evolution of CMOS Imaging Technology" talking about its 5T global shutter pixel introduced in 1999. Other global shutter pixel architectures mentioned, dividing them onto "voltage domain" and "charge domain" approaches, whereas "voltage domain" is said to be worse in almost everything, except the "shutter leakage".
Sensors Unlimited Inducted into SBIR Hall of Fame
PR Newswire: Sensors Unlimited, part of Goodrich Corp., has been inducted into the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Hall of Fame.
The SBIR Hall of Fame awards are given to firms with a long period of extraordinary success in research, innovation and commercialization. In recognition of this, a member of the Princeton, N.J.-based Sensors Unlimited team accepted an award at the White House executive office building on April 24, 2012. The SBIR funding has helped Sensors Unlimited develop innovative SWIR imager technology for military, industrial and medical applications.
The SBIR Hall of Fame awards are given to firms with a long period of extraordinary success in research, innovation and commercialization. In recognition of this, a member of the Princeton, N.J.-based Sensors Unlimited team accepted an award at the White House executive office building on April 24, 2012. The SBIR funding has helped Sensors Unlimited develop innovative SWIR imager technology for military, industrial and medical applications.
Friday, April 27, 2012
3D Camera News
PMD Youtube video shows what it says the smallest depth-sensing camera for close range gesture recognition. The CamBoard nano reference design measures 37x30x25mm - still too much to be integrated into laptop lid:
China Daily reports that Beijing eedoo Technology Ltd said the company's first multimedia entertainment console is set to hit the Chinese market on April 29, at a price of 3,799 yuan ($600) per unit. eedoo uses SoftKinetic ToF camera to control games in a similar way to Microsoft's Kinect. Good news for SoftKinetic which finally can get big sales after multiple delays!
China Daily reports that Beijing eedoo Technology Ltd said the company's first multimedia entertainment console is set to hit the Chinese market on April 29, at a price of 3,799 yuan ($600) per unit. eedoo uses SoftKinetic ToF camera to control games in a similar way to Microsoft's Kinect. Good news for SoftKinetic which finally can get big sales after multiple delays!
Market Pulse
Forward Concepts published its "Cellular Handset and Tablet Chip Markets 2012" research saying that in 2011 market for image sensors in phones and tablets was $2.9B. This compares with $15.9B for baseband chips, $5.5B for power management units, $3.7B for RF transceivers, $3.6B for RF power amplifiers, $2.8B for standalone application processors, and $2.7B for touch-screen controllers.
Reuters published an article on digital camera market. "For several years, it has been predicted that smartphone adoption would cut into digital camera sales," said Prashant Malaviya, Associate Professor of Marketing at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. "In fact, the exact opposite has happened."
"Camera photography is certainly not dead," said Liz Cutting, NPD Group. "We're just seeing a skewing towards what the smartphone can't deliver. People are recognizing that and are going for a higher end camera." Surveys by NPD Group show that while more than a quarter of all American photos were taken by a smartphone, more people were buying cameras with detachable lenses or cameras with optical zooms of 10x or more.
In markets such as the US and Japan, says Japan-based IHS analyst Kun Soo Lee, there's not many more people who want to buy compact point-and-shoot camera, a trend which has meant many mobile phones now do a better job of a point-and-shoot camera. How traditional camera makers react to these challenges is unclear. Canon, for example, has no obvious strategy to combat the rise of the smartphone, said IHS's Kun, and so will have to keep on peddling digital cameras.
Reuters published an article on digital camera market. "For several years, it has been predicted that smartphone adoption would cut into digital camera sales," said Prashant Malaviya, Associate Professor of Marketing at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. "In fact, the exact opposite has happened."
"Camera photography is certainly not dead," said Liz Cutting, NPD Group. "We're just seeing a skewing towards what the smartphone can't deliver. People are recognizing that and are going for a higher end camera." Surveys by NPD Group show that while more than a quarter of all American photos were taken by a smartphone, more people were buying cameras with detachable lenses or cameras with optical zooms of 10x or more.
In markets such as the US and Japan, says Japan-based IHS analyst Kun Soo Lee, there's not many more people who want to buy compact point-and-shoot camera, a trend which has meant many mobile phones now do a better job of a point-and-shoot camera. How traditional camera makers react to these challenges is unclear. Canon, for example, has no obvious strategy to combat the rise of the smartphone, said IHS's Kun, and so will have to keep on peddling digital cameras.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Descriptive Camera
I like this story due to its creativity in solving a complex image processing problem. The aim of the project is to find a way to generate a descriptive metadata about each photo that can be appended to the image on the fly — information about who is in each photo, what they're doing, and their environment. This metadata is quite useful in order to search, filter, and cross-reference our photo collections.
"The technology at the core of the Descriptive Camera is Amazon's Mechanical Turk API. It allows a developer to submit Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs) for workers on the internet to complete. The developer sets the guidelines for each task and designs the interface for the worker to submit their results. The developer also sets the price they're willing to pay for the successful completion of each task. An approval and reputation system ensures that workers are incented to deliver acceptable results."
"After the shutter button is pressed, the photo is sent to Mechanical Turk for processing and the camera waits for the results. A yellow LED indicates that the results are still "developing" in a nod to film-based photo technology. With a HIT price of $1.25, results are returned typically within 6 minutes and sometimes as fast as 3 minutes." Few examples of the descriptions are given on the project's page.
The Descriptive Camera was created by Matt Richardson for Dan O'Sullivan's Spring 2012 Computational Cameras class at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (NYU ITP).
More info: BBC, Discovery, Betabeat, NYT.
"The technology at the core of the Descriptive Camera is Amazon's Mechanical Turk API. It allows a developer to submit Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs) for workers on the internet to complete. The developer sets the guidelines for each task and designs the interface for the worker to submit their results. The developer also sets the price they're willing to pay for the successful completion of each task. An approval and reputation system ensures that workers are incented to deliver acceptable results."
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| Descriptive camera hardware is based on embedded Linux platform from TI |
"After the shutter button is pressed, the photo is sent to Mechanical Turk for processing and the camera waits for the results. A yellow LED indicates that the results are still "developing" in a nod to film-based photo technology. With a HIT price of $1.25, results are returned typically within 6 minutes and sometimes as fast as 3 minutes." Few examples of the descriptions are given on the project's page.
The Descriptive Camera was created by Matt Richardson for Dan O'Sullivan's Spring 2012 Computational Cameras class at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (NYU ITP).
More info: BBC, Discovery, Betabeat, NYT.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
MWIR Pixel Size Approaches the Wavelength
Photonics-online: Sofradir demonstrates a prototype of the first 10-micron pixel pitch HgCdTe-based MWIR imager at SPIE DSS in Baltimore, April 23-27, 2012.
Assuming the imager covers 3-5um band, the pixel size is just twice the wavelength, similar to 1.4um visible pixels for 0.4-0.7um band.
The focal plane array prototype was developed with the support of DGA (Direction Générale de l’Armement) by CEA-Leti at DEFIR, the joint laboratory of Sofradir and CEA-Leti. CEA-Leti is a leading European microtechnology, IT and health technology research center.
"It is critical for the military to see first and see the right target, whatever the weather conditions. This is what the higher resolution, higher range 10-micron pixel pitch infrared detector helps provide," said Philippe Bensussan, chairman and CEO at Sofradir. "Sofradir continues to build on its legacy of innovation. We were the first to introduce the 15-micron pixel pitch TV format IR detector, a compact high-resolution product that brought system integrators significant advantages in performance and footprint and has become an industry standard. We’re taking the lead once again by pushing the bar from 12-micron pixel pitch that exists today to 10-micron. Our customers can look forward to the ultimate performance in IR systems."
Assuming the imager covers 3-5um band, the pixel size is just twice the wavelength, similar to 1.4um visible pixels for 0.4-0.7um band.
The focal plane array prototype was developed with the support of DGA (Direction Générale de l’Armement) by CEA-Leti at DEFIR, the joint laboratory of Sofradir and CEA-Leti. CEA-Leti is a leading European microtechnology, IT and health technology research center.
"It is critical for the military to see first and see the right target, whatever the weather conditions. This is what the higher resolution, higher range 10-micron pixel pitch infrared detector helps provide," said Philippe Bensussan, chairman and CEO at Sofradir. "Sofradir continues to build on its legacy of innovation. We were the first to introduce the 15-micron pixel pitch TV format IR detector, a compact high-resolution product that brought system integrators significant advantages in performance and footprint and has become an industry standard. We’re taking the lead once again by pushing the bar from 12-micron pixel pitch that exists today to 10-micron. Our customers can look forward to the ultimate performance in IR systems."
Column Settling Speedup Proposal
Patent application US20120091323 by Shoji Kawahito proposes to speed-up the column voltage sampling onto a big capacitor. The idea is to add small capacitor sampler 17 that samples the column first, then accelerates charging of the main sampling cap C1i. It's quite self-explanatory based on the schematics and the timing diagram below (Block 11 is a pixel driving column Vcol):
There are few other similar ideas, like pre-charging the large C1i capacitor through a unity-gain buffer and then completing the final charge stage directly from column. One can add a little bit high pass filtering in the buffer to compensate for low-pass nature of the pixel+column cap path.
On the other hand, in Kawahito's idea one can add a small time delay or a phase shift in the trans-impedance amplifier 25 on the figure above to achieve a kind of inductive impedance in the column load and get some speed up from it.
There are few other similar ideas, like pre-charging the large C1i capacitor through a unity-gain buffer and then completing the final charge stage directly from column. One can add a little bit high pass filtering in the buffer to compensate for low-pass nature of the pixel+column cap path.
On the other hand, in Kawahito's idea one can add a small time delay or a phase shift in the trans-impedance amplifier 25 on the figure above to achieve a kind of inductive impedance in the column load and get some speed up from it.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Image Sensors at 2012 VLSI Circuit Symposium
2012 VLSI Circuit Symposium agenda has been published some time ago. There is no classical image sensor papers this year. Few interesting image sensor related papers are below:
Looks like gesture recognition application blends the border between ToF imagers, THz imaging and mm-band radars (session 7):
A 94GHz mm-Wave to Baseband Pulsed-Radar for Imaging and Gesture Recognition
A. Arbabian, S. Kang*, S. Callender*, J.-C. Chien*, B. Afshar*, A. Niknejad*, Stanford University, *University of California, Berkeley
An integrated phase-coherent and pixel-scalable pulsed-radar transceiver with on-chip tapered loop antennas generates programmable pulses down to 36ps using an integrated 94GHz carrier, frequency synthesized and locked to an external reference. A DLL controls the TX pulse position with 2.28ps resolution, which allows the chip to function as a unit element in a timed-array. The receiver also features a >1.5THz GBW DA as the front-end amplifier, wideband quadrature mixers, and a 26GHz quadrature baseband. Phase coherency allows for ~375μm single-target position resolution by interferometry.
Another imager-like radar works at slightly lower frequency band, but still is a single-chip design:
A UWB IR Timed-Array Radar Using Time-Shifted Direct-Sampling Architecture
C.-M. Lai, K.-W. Tan, L.-Y. Yu, Y.-J. Chen, J.-W. Huang, S.-C. Lai, F.-H. Chung, C.-F. Yen, J.-M. Wu, P.-C. Huang, K.-J. Chang, S.-Y. Huang, T.-S. Chu, National Tsing Hua University
A UWB impulse radio (IR) timed-array radar using time-shifted direct-sampling architecture is presented. The transmitter array can generate and send a variety of 10GS/s pulses towards targets. The receiver array samples the reflected signal in RF domain directly by time interleaved sampling with equivalent sampling rate of 20 GS/s. The radar system can determine time of arrival (TOA) and direction of arrival (DOA) through time-shifted sampling edges which are generated by on-chip digital-to-time converters (DTC). The proposed architecture has range and azimuth resolution of 0.75 cm and 3 degree respectively. This prototype is implemented in a 0.18μm CMOS technology.
While we are dreaming to reach full well of a mega-electron, it looks like HgCdTe guys enjoy measuring their full wells in giga-electrons (Session 15):
An 88dB SNR, 30µm Pixel Pitch Infra-Red Image Sensor with a 2-Step 16 bit A/D Conversion
A. Peizerat, J.-P. Rostaing, N. Zitouni, N. Baier, F. Guellec, R. Jalby, M. Tchagaspanian, CEA-LETI, Minatec
A new readout IC (ROIC) with a 2 step A/D conversion for cooled infrared image sensors is presented in this paper. The sensor operates at a 50Hz frame rate in an Integrate-While-Read snapshot mode. The 16 bit ADC resolution preserves the excellent detector SNR at full well (~3Ge-). The ROIC, featuring a 320x256 array with 30µm pixel pitch, has been designed in a standard 0.18µm CMOS technology. The IC has been hybridized (indium bump bonding) to a LWIR (Long Wave Infra Red) detector fabricated using our in-house HgCdTe process. The first measurement results of the detector assembly validate both the 2-step ADC concept and its circuit implementation. This work sets a new state-of-the-art SNR of 88dB.
Looks like gesture recognition application blends the border between ToF imagers, THz imaging and mm-band radars (session 7):
A 94GHz mm-Wave to Baseband Pulsed-Radar for Imaging and Gesture Recognition
A. Arbabian, S. Kang*, S. Callender*, J.-C. Chien*, B. Afshar*, A. Niknejad*, Stanford University, *University of California, Berkeley
An integrated phase-coherent and pixel-scalable pulsed-radar transceiver with on-chip tapered loop antennas generates programmable pulses down to 36ps using an integrated 94GHz carrier, frequency synthesized and locked to an external reference. A DLL controls the TX pulse position with 2.28ps resolution, which allows the chip to function as a unit element in a timed-array. The receiver also features a >1.5THz GBW DA as the front-end amplifier, wideband quadrature mixers, and a 26GHz quadrature baseband. Phase coherency allows for ~375μm single-target position resolution by interferometry.
Another imager-like radar works at slightly lower frequency band, but still is a single-chip design:
A UWB IR Timed-Array Radar Using Time-Shifted Direct-Sampling Architecture
C.-M. Lai, K.-W. Tan, L.-Y. Yu, Y.-J. Chen, J.-W. Huang, S.-C. Lai, F.-H. Chung, C.-F. Yen, J.-M. Wu, P.-C. Huang, K.-J. Chang, S.-Y. Huang, T.-S. Chu, National Tsing Hua University
A UWB impulse radio (IR) timed-array radar using time-shifted direct-sampling architecture is presented. The transmitter array can generate and send a variety of 10GS/s pulses towards targets. The receiver array samples the reflected signal in RF domain directly by time interleaved sampling with equivalent sampling rate of 20 GS/s. The radar system can determine time of arrival (TOA) and direction of arrival (DOA) through time-shifted sampling edges which are generated by on-chip digital-to-time converters (DTC). The proposed architecture has range and azimuth resolution of 0.75 cm and 3 degree respectively. This prototype is implemented in a 0.18μm CMOS technology.
While we are dreaming to reach full well of a mega-electron, it looks like HgCdTe guys enjoy measuring their full wells in giga-electrons (Session 15):
An 88dB SNR, 30µm Pixel Pitch Infra-Red Image Sensor with a 2-Step 16 bit A/D Conversion
A. Peizerat, J.-P. Rostaing, N. Zitouni, N. Baier, F. Guellec, R. Jalby, M. Tchagaspanian, CEA-LETI, Minatec
A new readout IC (ROIC) with a 2 step A/D conversion for cooled infrared image sensors is presented in this paper. The sensor operates at a 50Hz frame rate in an Integrate-While-Read snapshot mode. The 16 bit ADC resolution preserves the excellent detector SNR at full well (~3Ge-). The ROIC, featuring a 320x256 array with 30µm pixel pitch, has been designed in a standard 0.18µm CMOS technology. The IC has been hybridized (indium bump bonding) to a LWIR (Long Wave Infra Red) detector fabricated using our in-house HgCdTe process. The first measurement results of the detector assembly validate both the 2-step ADC concept and its circuit implementation. This work sets a new state-of-the-art SNR of 88dB.
Monday, April 23, 2012
TowerJazz CIS Process Now Available at Newport Beach, CA Fab
PR Newswire: TowerJazz announces the completion of the CIS process transfer from its Migdal Haemek, Israel facility to its US fab in Newport Beach, California providing multi-sourcing to better address its customers' growing needs. TowerJazz's CIS process has already been running in high volume in its Israeli plants, and is now available in its Newport Beach, CA facility for customers that require on-shore manufacturing.
Integration of TowerJazz's NMOS pixel with its 0.18um process provides a US-based solution for specialty image sensors for aerospace and defense applications as well. "Our aerospace and defense business is experiencing solid growth and the further expansion of our technology offerings will provide an even broader range of advanced technology to our customer base here in the US," said Corey Fukushima, TowerJazz Aerospace and Defense Sales.
"We are providing a high level of support to customize pixels in order to optimize performance for specialty applications, including non-ITAR aerospace and military applications. We are pleased with the transfer of our CIS process to our US fab to address customers' needs for on-shore manufacturing of ITAR applications and to provide a global sourcing solution with our advanced and proven CIS technology offering," said Dr. Avi Strum, VP and GM of Specialty Business Unit.
Integration of TowerJazz's NMOS pixel with its 0.18um process provides a US-based solution for specialty image sensors for aerospace and defense applications as well. "Our aerospace and defense business is experiencing solid growth and the further expansion of our technology offerings will provide an even broader range of advanced technology to our customer base here in the US," said Corey Fukushima, TowerJazz Aerospace and Defense Sales.
"We are providing a high level of support to customize pixels in order to optimize performance for specialty applications, including non-ITAR aerospace and military applications. We are pleased with the transfer of our CIS process to our US fab to address customers' needs for on-shore manufacturing of ITAR applications and to provide a global sourcing solution with our advanced and proven CIS technology offering," said Dr. Avi Strum, VP and GM of Specialty Business Unit.
Friday, April 20, 2012
GHz Imagers in Cellphones
As soon as ISSCC 2012 papers have been published on IEEE site, newspapers get excited about THz imagers presented there.
PopSci, Engadget and many others talk about work by Kenneth O, professor of EE at UT Dallas and director of the Texas Analog Center of Excellence(TxACE) at University of Texas at Dallas. "We’ve created approaches that open a previously untapped portion of the electromagnetic spectrum for consumer use and life-saving medical applications," said Dr. Kenneth O.
"CMOS is affordable and can be used to make lots of chips," Dr. O said. "The combination of CMOS and terahertz means you could put this chip and receiver on the back of a cellphone, turning it into a device carried in your pocket that can see through objects." Due to privacy concerns, Dr. O and his team are focused on uses in the distance range of less than four inches.
Meanwhile IEEE Spectrum talks about the THz camera designed by a team from IEMN and STMicroelectronics, in France, and the University of Wuppertal, in Germany.This camera has a resolution of 1024 pixels, frame rate 25fps and can operate out of USB power.
PopSci, Engadget and many others talk about work by Kenneth O, professor of EE at UT Dallas and director of the Texas Analog Center of Excellence(TxACE) at University of Texas at Dallas. "We’ve created approaches that open a previously untapped portion of the electromagnetic spectrum for consumer use and life-saving medical applications," said Dr. Kenneth O.
"CMOS is affordable and can be used to make lots of chips," Dr. O said. "The combination of CMOS and terahertz means you could put this chip and receiver on the back of a cellphone, turning it into a device carried in your pocket that can see through objects." Due to privacy concerns, Dr. O and his team are focused on uses in the distance range of less than four inches.
Meanwhile IEEE Spectrum talks about the THz camera designed by a team from IEMN and STMicroelectronics, in France, and the University of Wuppertal, in Germany.This camera has a resolution of 1024 pixels, frame rate 25fps and can operate out of USB power.
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