"Thanks to state-of-the-art III-V and thin-film (organics or quantum dots) material integration experience combined with imager design and manufacturing, imec is proposing a set of research activities which ambition is to innovate in the field of low cost and high resolution NIR/SWIR uncooled sensors as well as 3D sensing in NIR with Silicon-based Time-of-Flight pixels. This work will present the recent integration achievements with demonstration examples as well as development prospects in this research framework."
For years now I see one and another "low cost swir image sensor" presentation. Now, make it a product please ;-) I want to have something to solder on a PCB, not another powerpoint. The new sony ingaas sensor is included at least in this slides - seems this is the new standard competitor. Looking forward to see the device, it seems it will be shipped not far from now. It would be very cool from the CQD community to put a product on the table that beats the IMX990 in terms of overall attractivity (well... this still has to be demonstrated - in a few weeks we know how it works).
ReplyDeleteand ... the imec slides talk about a target of 10$. The standard for 1MP ingaas is in the 10k ballpark. Instead of targeting a factor 1000 somewhen, please target a factor 10 and make it a factor 5 in the first shot, but make it happen. a device like mid class global shutter sensors like lets say 2048x2048 with 4u pixels with swir sensitivity for 2000$. This would be far from what is available now. Dont target a 10$ device yet, make a 2000$ device happen that beats the current ingaas standard. please ;-)
ReplyDeleteCQD products are already there.. check out SWIR Vision systems for example. The R&D efforts are to bring CQD products at par with InGaAs sensors in a few years. Would be great if someone can compare a commercial CQD sensor pricing with Sony's (the new reference?) equivalent resolution sensor.
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According to http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2020/05/sony-unveils-swir-sensors-for.html, the price for samples of tecless 1.3mp is 800000yen, which according to google is 7400$. dont know but i assume the "normal production" sensor might not be more expensive? I think swir vision systems only sells cameras yet, i dont think they sell standalone sensors. i doubt they sell the 1.3MP camera for <10k$. Definitely more than the "imec 10$" ;-)
DeleteI don't think you should see imec as a product manufacturer and seller (definitely not like Sony). The goal is twofold: 1) demonstrate CQD on Si is possible with acceptable performance trade-offs (with R&D support); 2) realize the pre-industrialization phase with fab compatible tools so that fabs get convinced they can optimize it and make high volume to get to such low sensor price. For now, fabs are apparently not willing to jump on this technology (since Si is pretty good at current VCSEL wavelengths). When it comes to SWIR where Si is out of the question, you have Ge (high dark current & integration challenges), InGaAs (high cost and integration challenge) and CQD (low cost and moderate integration challenge). The cheapest will be CQD (no need for 2 wafers with very complex tiling + bonding with all the yield issues). You may not compare Formula 1 with Citroen 2CV. For most of us, 2CV is enough ;-)
ReplyDeleteHi Pierre, you're right. I know imec (in fact imec is on the list of our customers ;-) We discussed this topic just recently again (swir sensors in general are in discussion since quite some years for our applications). And I think you named the application that will drive swir sensor volume in a few years - swir vcsel (e.g. tof modules for smartphones). A few years down the road every second smartphone might have a swir tof module. This will change the production environment of swir sensors and make also cheaper industiral swir cameras possible. I dont know but I have the feeling that ingaas is not completely out of the race for this. Do you think a cqd based spad is possible? the lower qe of cqd might hurt a bit in a tof application where there are anyhow quite low number of photons to generate the signal of...
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