TowerJazz Updates on its CIS Business

SeekingAlpha: TowerJazz quarterly earnings call gives an update on the company image sensor business:

"Moving into the sensors business unit, which includes both our visual CMOS image sensors and non-visual sensors. Within the image sensor activities, our focus remains, firstly, the facial recognition sensor market, primarily in the mobile segment, which is mainly driven by mobile banking and payment applications; secondly, medical and dental market segments, where the served market size continues to increase as x-ray image intensifier tubes and flat panels are replaced by large stitched die, including paneled single die per wafer CMOS sensors; thirdly, high-end imaging, namely, high-end photography and also small pixel global shutter for industrial.

Many applications in these markets are expanding toward differentiated backside illumination and wafer stacking technologies. In all of the above, we continue to serve market leader existing customers for present state-of-the-art market demands as well as customer partner developments with existing and additional new powerful customers, driving breakthrough technologies to capture, for example, among others, the mobile facial recognition platforms for the many suppliers moving past the fingerprint sensors to 3D biometric recognition.

In the non-imaging sensor market, major growth is driven by the IoT market, which requires more and more sophisticated sensors at the edge. We have developed a variety of sensor technologies, including highly accurate and high-range temperature sensors, high sensitivity, as well as high-temperature magnetic sensors, radiation sensors, radon detection sensors, UV sensors and also gas and humidity sensors. We are now actively offering these technologies to customers.

Our recent investment in AIStorm, with proprietary technology, combined with our analog building blocks, provides a breakthrough analog artificial intelligence solution with low-power and low-cost artificial intelligence to edge devices. Our plan is eventually to combine this AI solution with our sensors, enabling smart edge devices for diversified market application."