Assorted News: Goodix, Sony

Digitimes: Goodix is to become the largest TSMC customer for its 8-inch fabs, thanks to its burgeoning business of under-display optical fingerprint sensors.

Sony opens Osaka-area design center for CMOS image sensors on April 1, 2020. "With the opening of the Osaka office, Sony has strengthened its CMOS image sensor design and development capabilities for mobile devices and the IoT market, which are expected to expand in the future, by acquiring talented analog and logic design engineers in Kansai. We aim to expand our product lineup."

Bloomberg reports that Sony has hard time manufacturing enough image sensors to keep up with high demand.

"For the second straight year, the Japanese company will run its chip factories constantly through the holidays to try and keep up with demand for sensors used in mobile phone cameras, according to Terushi Shimizu, the head of Sony’s semiconductor unit.

“Judging by the way things are going, even after all that investment in expanding capacity, it might still not be enough,” Shimizu said in an interview at the Tokyo headquarters. “We are having to apologize to customers because we just can’t make enough.”

Sony in May said it controls 51% of the image sensor market as measured by revenue and is targeting a 60% share by fiscal 2025. Shimizu estimates Sony’s portion of the pie grew by a few percentage points this year alone.

Sony is now looking to a new generation of sensors that can see the world in three dimensions. “This was the year zero for time of flight,” Shimizu said. “Once you start seeing interesting applications of this technology, it will motivate people to buy new phones.”

Sony’s ToF camera module.Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg