Digitimes reports that about 90% of the CIS orders for Apple's new iPhone 5 will be supplied by OmniVision, while Sony takes up the remainder, according to the newspaper's sources. Thanks to the Apple orders, OmniVision is expected to increase its total wafer starts at TSMC to almost 260,000 8-inch equivalent units in the third quarter, up more than 40% sequentially, the sources indicated.
It may be a high risk decision from Apple as to allocate 90% to a single source.
ReplyDeletewhy aren't aptina's image sensors used??? this is weird.
ReplyDelete260000 wafer starts in a quarter?
ReplyDeleteThat's probably around 2B cellphone sensors.
n.e.
@ "That's probably around 2B cellphone sensors."
ReplyDeleteHow do you get this number? If we assume that average 1/4-inch sensor has 6mm x 6mm area, there are roughly 800 sensors per 8-inch equivalent wafer. I'm not sure what is Omnivision's average yield, let's assume there are 700 known good dice and the packaging yield is 100% (it is not). So, we are talking about 800M sensors a year at most. With predicted total sensor market of 1.8-2Munits this year, can it be that Omnivision is aiming to 40% share?
I meant 1.8-2Bunits, sorry.
ReplyDeletegood for Omnivision, good for me too for investing in Omnivision long ago :P
ReplyDeleteIs sensor format 1/4" for iPhone5? Thought iPhone3 was 1/4", and iPhone4 was 1/3.2". Are they going back to 1/4"?
ReplyDeleteThere would only be at most ~610 die per 200mm wafer with a 6mm x 6mm die size, assuming they yield right out to the edge. But due to manuf limitations, die out at the edge don't yield. If take die out to within 3mm, it would drop to ~575 dpw, and to ~550 dpw going out to within 5mm from edge. Now take off from that for yield.
First post mentions it is OV's TOTAL wafer starts go to 260,000 ... clearly they aren't all for iPhone5, right?
Those things aside, 260,000*700 = 182,000,000 = 0.18 billion.
@ "Those things aside, 260,000*700 = 182,000,000 = 0.18 billion."
ReplyDelete260,000 wafer starts is per quarter, while we were talking about per year production. Also, I assumed 1/4-inch is average size across all Omnivision product lines. Why should we account for iPhone sensors only?
One aspect of the projected unit counts that I find pretty amazing is that the total human population is around 6.92 billion, so production of 1.8 billion image sensors is about 1 per 4 human beings. To me that seems like a huge amount in just one year.
ReplyDeleteDigitimes ... Hard to have the comments on nonsense articles.
ReplyDeleteTsmc now will only provide 300mm BSI process not 200mm
Also, if we really want iPhone ready in sep, which implies those wafer should come out now or early July. Is might be a mission impossible to ovt