TowerJazz Q1 2018 Report

SeekingAlpha publishes TowerJazz Q1 2018 earnings call transcript with update on the foundry's image sensor business:

"In the CMOS image sensor business unit, where we see recently very good results of our smallest in the world 2.5 micron global shutter pixel developed in our 300-millimeter 65-nanometer Uozu fab in Japan. We have two lead customers in the machine basic market, we have received silicon and plant provide prototype soon to their anxiously-awaiting customers. One of the products is a high resolution sensor for machine vision applications that with this pixel size gives a 4x resolution improvement with industry best current and quantum efficiency yielding much better performance than what is otherwise available in the market. We are supplying a wide range of pixel sizes for different machine vision applications on global shutter technology platform that will enhance our leadership in this market. We expect to start production on this platform by the end of the year.

In the medical X-ray market, we just prototyped a one dye per wafer device. We are one of the world's leading X-ray sensor suppliers and plan to ramp the high volume by the end of this year with three different products, all targeted to be high runners. In addition, as previously discussed, our 300-millimeter development of a 21/21 centimeter X-ray device for tiled and non-tiled applications has lead customer having demonstrated excellent pixel performance on prototypes and as well as excellent product yield. These results have attracted activities with other market leaders.

We are moving according to our plans with the leading DSLR camera supplier and we will start soon as second even more ambitious project, which includes stacked backside illuminated wafers for this market. This will continue to position us as a leading foundry for high-end photography applications. All these exciting activities will bear fruits in the coming two to three years in a steady high volume, high margin production as the world-leading provider of CMOS sensors for high-end applications. In addition, we are working today on several exciting projects that will drive very high volume in the augmented reality and virtual reality markets for both sensors and displays, and on a very unique embedding of artificial intelligence into imaging and other sensors. This should yield very high volumes in the coming three to five years and beyond.

We continue to produce infrared sensors not only for iOS and Android mobile platforms as previously announced, but with strong presence across industrial and specifically growing and automotive night-vision driver systems application."