Himax CMOS Sensor Business Bottomed Out

Himax Q1 2016 earnings report updates on the company's image sensor business:

"It is also worth highlighting that our CMOS image sensor product line bottomed out in the first quarter, rebounding from its trough in 2015.

Looking into the second quarter, there will be mass production of several design wins for notebooks and increased shipments for multimedia applications. In recent press releases and the last earnings call, we briefly introduced our new smart sensor product lines targeting new applications across smartphones, tablets, AR/VR devices, IoT and artificial intelligence. These include the ultra-low-power QVGA CMOS image sensor and the Diffractive Optical Element (“DOE”) integrated WLO laser diode collimator to be paired with a Near Infrared (NIR) sensor.

We believe the former is by far the lowest power CIS in the industry with similar resolution. It can be applied in a constant state of operation, enabling “always on”, contextually aware, computer vision capabilities.

Regarding DOE integrated WLO laser diode collimator with NIR sensor, we believe this is the most effective total solution for 3D sensing and detection in the smallest form factor. This breakthrough allows 3D image sensing feature to be easily integrated into next-generation consumer electronics. Currently, we are making good progress and have seen encouraging and increasing customer responses. We will report the developments in this new territory in due course."