"Due to the late start and weak infrastructure of the semiconductor industry in China, the Chinese development of commercial CCD chips was completely buried and behind. The market used to be basically monopolized by Japanese manufacturers such as Sony, Panasonic and Sharp. Therefore, China completely missed the CCD era. With the rise of CIS, how to break the technology and market monopoly by Japanese and European manufacturers in the image sensor field has become the biggest challenge for the Chinese semiconductor industry.
Soon after graduating from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology with his doctorate, Dr. Xu Chen went to Silicon Valley in the United States to pursue his own engineer dream. He joined the world's first company that launched commercial CIS chips, and engaged in the research and development of pixel components, the most important component in CIS development. During this time, Dr. Xu and his team developed and applied for nearly 30 patents. Since then, Dr. Xu has been engaged in technology research and development at leading CIS companies.
With the rise of Sony in the CIS field, the "Silicon Valley Power" has gradually declined, and "Asian Power" has risen to the front stage. It was at this time that Dr. Xu Chen first developed the idea of creating a Chinese brand to challenge the Japanese and European CIS giants.
In 2011, opportunities arose as China accelerated development in its tech industry. The central government introduced a series of policies designed to attract overseas talents, including the “Thousand Talents Plan.” Local governments also launched various policies to support the homecoming of oversea talents. It is at this prime time that Dr. Xu Chen returned to his motherland with his own visions, beliefs and core CIS innovations.
To Dr. Xu, successful Silicon Valley companies often share such characteristics: tech- and market-savvy founders, cohesive and go-getting teams, generous and people-oriented benefits, and compatible and diverse cultures. Not only has SmartSens, a company founded in China, inherited the Silicon Valley spirits from Dr. Xu Chen, but it continues to absorb globally educated talents to create a "Chinese core" in the CIS field. Founded on quality products and technological innovations, SmartSens is breaking the monopoly of Japanese and European manufacturers and leading China in the CIS era."
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| SmartSens founder Xu Chen |
Here is the exact English translation of my earlier comment:
ReplyDeleteEric R FossumAugust 8, 2018 at 10:10 PM
Reads just as if it was written by the protagonist of the article. Isn't Omnivision the original Chinese CIS company? And I wonder, were they the first company to launch commercial CIS chips? What about VVL? or IVP? Or Reticon? or Hitachi? And where did Mr Chen come by his vast knowledge of CIS technology? Why was his company sued? There is a lot of horse manure in this biography. We cannot let BS like this go unchallenged.
Haha. Hmm, Eric May I ask which company is the first commercial CIS company? just for my curiosity.
DeleteNMOS Image sensor was Hitachi and CMOS image sensor was VVL. The first VVL sensor was designed by a Chinese guy, Mr. Wang who returned back to China and set a company but without success ...
DeleteGood question. If CIS means CMOS active pixel image sensor with intrapixel charge transfer, then the answer is Photobit. That is what CIS means today. If it includes MOS passive pixel sensors then it could be Gene Weckler's Reticon. I am not sure that Peter Noble's company ever produced commercial devices for sale but that would be contemporaneous with Reticon. Certainly IVP (Linkoping Sweden) had passive pixel CMOS image sensors on the market for machine vision. Peter Denyer, founder of VVL, said Omnivision's first commercial sensors were a direct knock-off of VVL's passive pixel sensors. The point here of course, is that in no way is Omnivision, not founded until 1995, the first commercial CIS company. (VVL and Omnivision switched to active pixel devices within a couple of years and followed Photobit).
DeleteWhat an oxymoron of a sentence "Smartsens is breaking the monopoly of Japanese and European manufacturers". When you have multiple continents and a plural "manufacturers" used in the same sentence as monopoly you've taken the 2018 PR Article Award for Worst Release. Maybe there weren't enough Sony, OV, Samsung, ON Semi. etc PR articles for them to copy?
ReplyDeleteWhat a shady company this is!
ReplyDeleteA patent search on Xu Chen shows Boise ID, then San Jose. Assignees include HKUST, Micron and Aptina.
ReplyDeleteA more interesting search is Xu Chen as inventor and Smartsens as applicant. That reveals 17 applications. Have a look and check if there is anything new in those.
DeleteHe worked at Micron/Aptina before Omnivision. So, first commercial CIS company is probably referring to Micron(Photobit).
ReplyDeleteThis company should spend more time and resources not on silly (and frankly comical) statements like the one above, but actually working on improving whatever products they have, and their presentation skills. One thing is to be a copycat, another is to be a copycat and be doing it right.
ReplyDeleteGuess Xu need cook some story to fool the investors who eager to move their money from real estate and coal mining.
ReplyDeleteThis is why ......
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mems.me/mems/investment_201808/6864.html?from=singlemessage&isappinstalled=0
When was the Photobit 1st product and where can we find it? When I worked on Toshiba's 1st CIS mass-produced in 1998, I knew VVL and Photobit but did not know a Photobi product. In 1998, Toshiba sold CIS digital still camera "Allegretto".
ReplyDeletePhotobit was started in 1995, and its first products were custom designs. The first public product was the PB159, which won first place at the Stanford Hot Chips Symposium. The first public product that went into mass production was the PB100. You can find it in the IEEE Spectrum Chip Hall of Fame or physically there was one on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. Now you can find it at the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum in the USPTO building. Toshiba's entry into the market helped VVL and Photobit quite a bit by making the CIS technology credible to many people. (Actually CIS passive pixels by VVL and Omnivision were so bad many people thought CIS was a terrible technology). Later VVL and Omnivision and Toshiba followed Photobit's active pixel sensor approach.
DeleteThank you Eric. Just for the record I have to correct that Toshiba's 1st CIS product and its DSC seem to be 1997. That was 0.7um process 2-share active pixel with transfer gate, but avoided pinned photodiode. Interesting is most of the development members were virtually forced to leave Toshiba and joined Sony, Panasonic, Omnivision and so on. Even so I was lucky to have been in this industry to see vast development from early stage.
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