Heptagon Raised $22M

LEDs Magazine: Heptagon, the Finland-based developer of wafer-scale micro-optics, has raised over $22 million in new equity financing, mostly from a new syndicate led by GGV Capital. Heptagon has introduced several new products this year, including 2 and 3MP camera lenses.

Omnivision Introduces 3mm Thin VGA Sensor

Yahoo: Omnivision introduced 3mm thin OV7739 VGA video sensor, developed specifically to address the low-light sensitivity demands of notebook PC market. The 1/7.5 inch OV7739 delivers low light sensitivity of 3300 mV/(lux-sec). The OV7739 is capable of operating at 30fps in VGA resolution and 60fps in QVGA resolution. It provides full-frame, sub-sampled, windowed or scaled 8-bit/10-bit images in RAW RGB and YUV formats over parallel and MIPI interfaces.

The OV7739 is immediately available in volume production.

David Orton Appointed CEO of Aptina

Aptina announced the appointment of David Orton to CEO as of August 5, 2009. David Orton succeeds Nicholas Brathwaite who has been the CEO since April 2008 and who will assume the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors for Aptina. Aptina is now independent and privately held following the sale by Micron Technology, Inc. of a majority interest to Riverwood Capital and TPG Capital on July 10, 2009. Micron has retained a 35% minority interest in Aptina.

Orton, 53, most recently served as CEO at venture-backed start up, DSM Solutions. Prior to that, Orton was Executive VP of Visual and Media Businesses for AMD following the company’s acquisition of ATI. Prior to this acquisition, Orton served as the president and CEO of ATI from 2000 to 2006. Prior to joining ATI, Orton was President and CEO at the high-performance 3-D graphics company, ArtX, which was acquired by ATI in 2000.

Prior to joining ArtX, Orton served in a number of senior management roles at SGI. His experience also includes graphics and semiconductor work for GE and Bell Laboratories. Orton holds several patents in graphics and computer architecture.

Albert Theuwissen's Blog

Albert Theuwissen just started his blog at Harvest Imaging site. The first post is devoted to Image Sensors Workshop, where Albert was the General Chair. Some interesting questions about the Workshop are asked and answered. I hope the future posts will be no less interesting!

Google Phototech Slides On-Line

As Image Sensors Blogger from Japan noticed, Dick Lyon put most of Google Photographic Technology lectures with pdf slides on-line. The lectures have high educational value and slides are much faster to go through than videos.

Pixel Scan Quantum Efficiency Spectra Reshaping

Pixel Scan company was founded by Professor Orly Yadid-Pecht from Israeli Ben-Gurion University. The company proposes Quantum Efficiency Spectra Reshaping (QESR) technology that enhances CIS performance. The QESR hardware block takes sensor's output and does some magic in Bayer domain that relies on "Patented Technology that Reshapes Image Sensor’s QE Spectra, while reducing its Inherent Color CrossTalk (CTK)
The signal is “rearranged” such that the photocarriers captured by the "wrong" pixels are "restored" to the pixel they initially originated from without signal loss and additive noise."



The net result of QESR algorithm is 10% low-light sensitivity improvement and more:



The company's poster is here.

Eric Fossum Got IEEE Andrew Grove Award

It just got to my attention that Eric Fossum received 2009 IEEE Andrew Grove Award "For significant contributions to the invention, development, and commercialization of CMOS image sensors". Congratulations Eric!

MIT Creates Flexible Camera

MIT Review, PhysOrg.com report that the MIT led by Associate Professor Yoel Fink of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) proposed a camera made of the flexible fiber with embedded sensors. The demonstration prototype is made of 36-by-36 grid of fibers. Each polymer fiber embeds eight sensors, as pictured below. The fiber sensors are connected to electrodes. When light hits the sensors it creates an electrical current. The intensity of this current from the fibers is input into algorithms, running on an attached computer, that create the image of an object placed near the sheet of fiber.

Thanks to S.S. for the link.

Samsung To Ramp Up 8" CIS Wafer Production

Digitimes sends conflicting signals about Samsung production plans. Now the paper tells that Samsung revealed plans to ramp up the output of 8-inch wafer fabs by 3,000-5,000 a month from August through December in order to meet increasing demand for high-end image sensors in response to the growing demand for high-end multimedia handsets. Samsung total capacity for the segment is estimated at 15,000-20,000 wafers by the end of this year.

From Black Silicon to Pink Silicon

MIT Technology Review reports that Harvard University researchers who first discovered black silicon are now studying a modified form of the material that has no cones but exhibits the same unique optoelectronic properties. One of black silicon's key characteristics is a forest of microscopic cones that form on its surface and give the material its black color. But the cones that cover the surface of black silicon, which are created during the high-intensity, short-pulse femtosecond laser restructuring of silicon, can cause problems - for example, by foiling bulk fabrication attempts.

SiOnyx company was founded to turn black silicon's potential into commercial devices, including high-sensitivity image sensors based on photoconductive gain. While the company's process doesn't use completely flat silicon, the SiOnyx researchers cut down the cone height from microns to about 200 nanometers to help the fabrication process and have recently demonstrated the prototype sensors.

Harvard University Prof. Mazur's lab has now added a new twist to the black-silicon production process, taking advantage of the absorption and high-gain properties of black silicon but keeping the material completely flat. That could help overcome fabrication challenges and allow for more detailed study of the material. The new material is nicknamed pink silicon.