Yole and Chipworks Analyse Omnivision BSI Packaging in iPhone 4

November issue of Yole Développement's Packaging Magazine has an article on iPhone BSI sensor packaging. The 5 Mp iPhone camera module is said to be assembled by LG Innotek. The module dimensions are 9.2 mm x 9.2 mm x 6.2 mm thick:

One interesting discovery was that gold studs are used to connect the die bond pads instead of TSV. This type of packaging for a CIS application has typically only been seen in some DSLR camera sensors. While OmniVision/TSMC do have a TSV process for BSI parts, the back bonding scheme has provided what is likely a higher yielding alternative that satisfied Apple’s specification:

IEEE Sensors 2010 Conference Papers and Awards

IEEE Sensors 2010 conference held on Nov. 1-4 in Hawaii had few image sensor papers:

IN-PIXEL BURIED-CHANNEL SOURCE FOLLOWER IN CMOS IMAGE SENSORS EXPOSED TO X-RAY RADIATION
Y. Chen, J. Tan, X. Wang, A.J. Mierop, and A.J.P. Theuwissen
Delft University of Technology, THE NETHERLANDS
CMOSIS nv, BELGIUM
DALSA B.V., THE NETHERLANDS
Harvest Imaging, BELGIUM

LOW-POWER AND HIGH-SPEED CURRENT-MODE CMOS IMAGER WITH 1T BIASING SCHEME
F. Tang and A. Bermak
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, HONG KONG

MISMATCH REDUCTION FOR DARK CURRENT SUPPRESSION
D. Sander and P. Abshire
University of Maryland, USA

ARCHITECTURE OF THREE DIMENSIONAL COMPRESSIVE ACQUISITION CMOS IMAGE SENSOR
M. Zhang, A. Bermak, and P. Xu
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, HONG KONG

A 64 x 64 PIXELS 30μW VISION SENSOR WITH BINARY DATA COMPRESSION
N. Massari, M. De Nicola, N. Cottini, and M. Gottardi
Fondazione Bruno Kessler, ITALY

A VARIABLE TOPOLOGY PARTITIONED PIXEL AMPLIFIER FOR LOW AND HIGH LIGHT LEVEL DETECTION IN A CMOS IMAGER
Y. Dattner, and O. Yadid-Pecht
University of Calgary, CANADA

The best poster award went to:

FLUORESCENT IMAGING AND LOCALIZATION WITH ANGLE SENSITIVE PIXEL ARRAYS IN STANDARD CMOS
A. Wang, P.R. Gill, and A. Molnar
Cornell University, USA

The 2nd best student paper award went to Yang Xu for her master thesis:

A CMOS IMAGE SENSOR WITH CHARGE DOMAIN INTERLACE SCAN
Y. Xu, A. Mierop, and A.J.P. Theuwissen
Delft University of Technology, THE NETHERLANDS
DALSA Professional Imaging, THE NETHERLANDS
Harvest Imaging, BELGIUM

Interlace scanning in CCDs was/is always done in the charge domain, in CMOS this was done in the voltage or digital domain with extra loss of SNR. In the work of Xu, charge domain interlace scanning in CMOS imagers is realized for the first time, with the same SNR characteristics as with CCDs.

Thanks to A.T. for letting me know!

CMOSIS Develops Dual Gain Readout HDR Sensor

New Electronics: CMOSIS has demonstrated a 1MP image sensor featuring dual gain readout to reach DR of more than 89.5dB. The DR is increased by two approaches. First, the dark noise is said to be reduced. Second, the integration of the image charge is said to take place simultaneously at low and high amplification settings. This dual gain readout results in two different images which are read out sequentially and combined externally into one final image. The sensor has twice the number of column amplifiers than columns and the gain of each amplifier is programmable up to 16.

This approach is to be used in a number of future products with different pixel size, frame rate, etc.

Update: Electronics Weekly too published an article about the new CMOSIS 1MP imager dubbed CLN1000 and featuring 10um pixels. The sensor consumes 300 to 350mW, and is housed in a JLCC-84 package. The article also states low dark noise of less than 3.4e- at a full well capacity of 100 ke-. EETimes quotes the same numbers too.

Update #2: Photonics Online published an article about the CMOSIS prototype too.

Update #3: Here is the original CMOSIS PR.

ISSCC 2011 Abstracts Published

The new version of ISSCC 2011 Advance Program includes abstracts. Some of them are quoted below:

A 1.32pw/frame∙pixel 1.2v CMOS Energy-Harvesting and Imaging (EHI) APS Imager
S. U. Ay
University of Idaho, Moscow, ID

A CMOS energy-harvesting and imaging (EHI) APS imager capable of 7.4fps video capture and 3.5μW power generation is designed, fabricated, and tested in 0.5μm CMOS. It has a 54×50 array of 21μm2 EHI pixels, 10b supply-boosted SAR-ADC and charge-pump circuits consuming 14.25μW from 1.2V resulting in a lowest power imager with 1.32pW/frame∙pixel.

An 80μvrms-Temporal-Noise 82dB-Dynamic-Range CMOS Image Sensor with a 13-to-19b Variable-Resolution Column-Parallel Folding-Integration/Cyclic ADC
M-W. Seo, S. Suh, T. Iida, H. Watanabe, T. Takasawa, T. Akahori, K. Isobe,
T. Watanabe, S. Itoh, S. Kawahito
Shizuoka University, Hamamatsu, Japan
Brookman Technology, Hamamatsu, Japan
Sanei Hytechs, Hamamatsu, Japan

A 1Mpixel, 7.5μm pixel pitch, 0.18μm CMOS image sensor with column-parallel folding-integration and cyclic ADCs has 80μVrms (1.2e-) temporal noise, 82dB dynamic range using 64 samplings in the folding-integration ADC mode. Variable gray-scale resolution of 13b through 19b is obtained by changing the number of samplings for pixel outputs.

A Sub-Electron Readout Noise CMOS Image Sensor with Pixel-Level Open-Loop Voltage Amplification
C. Lotto, P. Seitz, T. Baechler
Heliotis, Root Längenbold, Switzerland
CSEM, Zurich, Switzerland
CSEM, Landquart, Switzerland
EPFL, Neuchâtel, Switzerland

A 256×256 pixel, 11μm pixel pitch, 0.18μm CMOS image sensor featuring pixel-level open-loop voltage amplification reaches a readout noise of 0.86e- and a dynamic range of 90dB in a single readout using a low-complexity readout circuit with 60fps. A reset method based on negative feedback allows the use of open-loop amplification while achieving PRNU of 2.5% and a peak linearity error of 1.7%.

A 300mm Wafer-Size CMOS Image Sensor with In-Pixel Voltage-Gain Amplifier and Column-Level Differential Readout Circuitry
Y. Yamashita, H. Takahashi, S. Kikuchi, K. Ota, M. Fujita, S. Hirayama, T. Kanou,
S. Hashimoto, G. Momma, S. Inoue
Canon, Kawasaki, Japan

A 1.6Mpixel, 202×205mm2 CMOS image sensor on 300mm wafer consists of pixels of 160μm pitch with a 0-to-24dB variable gain in-pixel voltage amplifier. Reset and integrated signals are simultaneously read out from the pixel through a pair of column lines. It achieves a sensitivity of 25Me-/lux∙s, random noise of 13e-rms and operates at 100fps with global synchronous shutter.

An Angle-Sensitive CMOS Imager for Single-Sensor 3D Photography
A. Wang, P. R. Gill, A. Molnar
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

A 0.18μm 3D CMOS image sensor composed of angle-sensitive pixels captures both local incident angle and intensity. The 400×384 pixel array has a 7.5μm pitch and local diffraction gratings over each pixel. One such chip, using one lens and ambient light, enables post-capture refocus and range finding accurate to ±1.3cm at 50cm.

A 1/13-inch 30fps VGA SOC CMOS mage Sensor with Shared Reset and Transfer-Gate Pixel Control
R. Johansson, A. Storm, C. Stephansen, S. Eikedal, T. Willassen, S. Skaug, T. Martinussen, T. Whittlesea, G. Ali, J. Ladd, X. Li, S. Johnson, V. Rajasekaran, Y. Lee, J. Bai, M. Flores, G. Davies, H. Samiy, A. Hanvey, D. Perks
Aptina Imaging, Oslo, Norway
Aptina Imaging, Bracknell, United Kingdom
Aptina Imaging, San Jose, CA
Aptina Imaging, Corvallis, OR

This paper describes a 1/13-inch VGA SoC CMOS image sensor, with a 1.75μm pixel pitch capable of outputting 30fps at full resolution. The paper focuses on the sensor core, with a size of 1.77mm2 and a power consumption of 17mW. Thel pixel architecture uses a pixel-sharing scheme that improves low-light performance.

A 1/2.33-inch 14.6M 1.4μm-pixel Backside-Illuminated CMOS Image Sensor with Floating Diffusion Boosting
S. Lee, K. Lee, J. Park, H. Han, Y. Park, T. Jung, Y. Jang, B. Kim, Y. Kim, S. Hamami, U. Hizi, M. Bahar, C. Moon, J. Ahn, D. Lee, H. Goto, Y-T. Lee
Samsung Electronics, Yong-In, Korea
Samsung Semiconductor, Ramat-Gan, Israel

A 1/2.33-inch 14.6Mpixel CIS is developed by employing a 1.4μm BSI pixel with a floating diffusion boosting scheme driven by coupling with additional row-wise metal-line, achieving 30% higher QE than that of an FSI sensor, 87lux for SNR=10, and no image lag, for high-sensitivity and high-speed applications.

An APS-C Format 14b Digital CMOS Image Sensor with a Dynamic Response Pixel
D. Pates, J-H. Lyu, S. Osawa, I. Takayanagi, T. Sato, T. Bales, K. Kawamura, E. Pages, S. Matsuo, T. Kawaguchi, T. Sugiki, N. Yoshimura, J. Nakamura, J. Ladd, Z. Yin, R. Iimura, X. Fan, S. Johnson, A. Rayankula, R. Mauritzson, G. Agranov
Aptina Imaging, San Jose, CA
Aptina Imaging, Tokyo, Japan
Aptina Imaging, Bracknell, United Kingdom

A 16M APS-C format CMOS image sensor with 14b SAR-ADC and 8-lane LVDS output is fabricated and characterized. A 4.78μm dynamic response pixel with ring gate transistors and no STI provides 62% QE, responsivity of 49.5ke-/lux∙s, and dark current of 17e-/s @ 60°C. The readout noise floor is 2.2e- with column FPN of 0.11e- in HCG mode.

A 17.7Mpixel 120fps CMOS Image Sensor with 34.8Gb/s Readout
T. Toyama, K. Mishina, H. Tsuchiya, T. Ichikawa, H. Iwaki, Y. Gendai, H. Murakami, K. Takamiya, H. Shiroshita, Y. Muramatsu, T. Furusawa
Sony, Kanagawa, Japan
Sony LSI Design, Kanagawa, Japan

A 17.7Mpixel CMOS image sensor with a 27.5mm optical format realizes 120fps at 12b using 90nm CMOS. This sensor achieves 2.75e-rms random noise at 12b, 120fps with a maximum data rate of 34.8Gb/s. The 16 channels of scalable low-voltage signaling I/F with embedded clock operate at 2.376Gb/s each and the single-slope ADC ramp generator runs at 2.376GHz.

A 160×128 Single-Photon Image Sensor with On-Pixel 55ps 10b Time-to-Digital Converter
C. Veerappan, J. Richardson, R. Walker, D-U. Li, M. W. Fishburn, Y. Maruyama, D. Stoppa, F. Borghetti, M. Gersbach, R. K. Henderson, E. Charbon1
Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
STMicroelectronics, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Fondazione Bruno Kessler - IRST, Trento, Italy
EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland

A 160×128 pixel array is presented detecting photons with 55ps time resolution. Each pixel comprises a counter, a time-to-digital converter, and a 10b memory, while a frame is read out every 20μs. The sensor is well suited for applications such as fast fluorescence lifetime imaging, optical rangefinding, and time-correlated single-photon counting.

Ambarella Introduces 3D HD Processors

EON: Ambarella announces a complete 3D camera solution that includes the new S3D, a 3D video pre-processor. When combined with Ambarella’s A7 HD camera SoC, the S3D enables development of cameras up to 1080p60 resolution, while combining it with Ambarella’s A5s HD camera SoC enables resolutions of 1080p30, 1080i60 or 720p60. Both the A7 and A5s feature dual stream H.264 encoding, image stabilization with rolling shutter correction for CMOS sensors and wireless connectivity options.

The S3D can accept input from CMOS sensors with MIPI, parallel, or SLVDS interfaces and supports runtime parallax adjustment and HDMI 1.4 3D information.

The S3D and full 3D camera reference design kit with A7 or A5s SDK are available immediately.

2010 Image Sensor Market by Region

Newswire Today: Electronics.ca announces a new report titled "Image Sensors Market Report". According to the report, Asia Pacific region is the largest single region by sales with $3.3B projected for 2010 and average growth of 10% annually through 2015. Korean and Taiwanese suppliers are gaining in market share, especially for camera phones.

Japan has traditionally dominated image sensor production, and still manufactures over 90% of the world's CCDs. Japan will remain the second largest region for production with $2.2B in revenue expected for 2010.

The Americas' share of the image sensor market has jumped from 3% in 2007 to over 12% in 2010. This jump is likely the result of some large image sensors supplier recording revenue for sales to a different region in 2007, and now recording it in the Americas region, either due to a relocation of manufacturing, or a reclassification in the region originally credited for the sale to better reflect where the products were actually shipped.

Europe is currently the smallest region by sales with $416M in revenue and 6% of the total market projected for this year.

Looking at the bigger picture, the whole optoelectronics market is $22.5B this year and is expected to reach $37B by 2015. Segments within this category include Image Sensors, Lamps, Displays, Couplers, Infrared Devices, Laser Pickups, Laser Transmitters, and Other Optoelectronics. Lamps (LEDs) constitute the majority share of the world's optoelectronics revenue with 33% share, followed by image sensors with 30% share.

Pixelplus Shows Nice Quarterly Profit (for the company size)

PR Newswire: Pixelplus announced financial results for the Q3 2010, which ended on September 30, 2010.

The quarterly net income was $1.4M, compared to a net income of $600K in Q2 2010, and a net income of $150K in Q3 2009. The gross margin was 40.5%, compared to 33.6% in Q2 2010. The company's increase in gross margin was mainly due to its sales of high margin-driven products.

The revenue for the quarter was $6.1M, compared to $6.0M in Q2 2010, and $3.1M in Q3 2009.

"The key to our consistent growth and success will be our ability to transform our organization to achieve long-term profitability. For this aim, I believe our strategic and ongoing cost-control measures should help us decrease our cash requirements, concentrate on our core business, maintain our continuity, and improve the efficiency of our operations," said Dr. S.K. Lee, CEO and Founder of Pixelplus, "We continue to dedicate all of our efforts and energies on achieving our long-term growth targets and business strategies through developing new products, entering new markets, and securing new design wins."

4MP/800fps 35mm-Format Camera Announced

Vision Research unveils Phantom v341 - a high-speed camera tailored to military, scientific, research, and range applications.

The v341 incorporates a 4MP/800fps 35mm format sensor with 3 gigapixels/second throughput. The custom-designed 2560 x 1600 pixel CMOS sensor featurs peak QE of 60%, global shutter speed down to 1us and Extreme Dynamic Range (EDR) mode with two different exposures within a single frame. Color and monochrome versions are available.

DALSA Announces 300fps X-Ray Sensors

Web Newswire: DALSA announced Xineos-1313-EO CMOS X-Ray detector panel designed to operate at full resolution frame-based panoramic dental imaging at frame rates exceeding 300 fps, as well Medium Field of View (MFOV) Cone Beam CT applications at 30 fps. The panel resolution is not clear from the announcement.

3D News Roundup

Panasonic seems to be busy promoting its 3D ToF D-Imager in the 6 Youtube videos. Most of the videos appeared earlier at Panasonic site. One of them talks about security applications with D-Imager providing the data to enable accurate person and anti-tailgating detection:



Meanwhile, the reverse engineering of Microsoft Kinect goes on. Future Picture site explores a projection pattern that allows Kinect to sense the depth. The red cycles show repeating elements in the pattern:

The full patten is arranged as 3x3 matrix of dots. Each part has different brightness and centering dot:

Via electronsholes.

Update: The open access Sensors journal published the Stanford University paper titled "Photo-Detectors for Time of Flight Positron Emission Tomography (ToF-PET)". The paper reviews recent advances in time of flight positron emission tomography (ToF-PET) based on two types of photo-detectors: photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) and silicon photo-multipliers (SiPMs) with a special focus on SiPMs.