Organic Film IR Upconversion for Night Vision

Discovery: Florida University research group under Franky So lead describes a new night vision technology in a recent article in the journal Advanced Materials that was funded in part by DARPA.

Infrared light enters the film and is detected by the first of seven separate layers, which generates a slight electrical charge. Additional electrical energy -- about three to five volts -- amplifies that signal, which is then converted back into visible light.

Like most of today's night vision cameras, So's device emits an eerie green light. Unlike most night vision technology today, however, So's design would weigh less than 100 grams. Part of that weight is the proof of concept small size -- about one square centimeter -- but So says that even a full scale device could weigh as little as 10 grams and be only a few microns thick.

It will take about 18 months to scale up the device for practical applications, such as car windshields, lightweight night vision eyeglasses and cell phones cameras.

University Florida page adds some details about the new technology. All organic up-conversion devices are realized by integrating an OLED and an organic photodetector into one device. Prior art NIR-to-visible light up-conversion devices, integrating an inorganic LED with an inorganic photodetector, have been reported but the maximum external conversion efficiency was about 0.3%. Organic version is supposed to have an advantage in this.

Thanks to A.A. for sending me the link.

Tessera Got First EDoF Royalties

Business Wire: Tessera announced its Q1 2010 results. Imaging & Optics revenue was comprised of $3.1M in royalties and license fees, and $5.4M in products and services. Tessera siaid it received first royalties for its EDOF technology in the first quarter. The company anticipates EDOF royalties will continue to grow throughout this year as additional OEMs ship mobile camera modules with our EDOF technology.

In terms of outlook, Q2 2010 Imaging & Optics royalties and license fees revenue is expected to range between $3.0 M to $3.5M. Imaging & Optics products and services revenue is expected to range between $5.5M to $6.0M.

TSMC Working on 1.19um Pixel?

Seeking Alpha TSMC Q1 2010 Earnings Call transcript mentions new pixel development activity:

Shang-Yi Chiang, SVP, R&D:

"We are working with customers on 1.19 micron pixel, and TSMC is the first one to introduce this thing called BSI technology, backside illumination. There are certain advantages if we shine light from the backside, and in this case we had to slim down the wafer to 3 microns thick. The handling, the technology, extremely difficult. We already shipped products using this BSI technology in 8-inch wafers and we are working on 12-inch wafers right now."

Omnivision reported earlier that it's working on 1.1um pixel. So, who is this customer designing 1.19um pixels? Shang-Yi used to be Visera chairman for 3 years or so, it's hard to believe that he made a mistake with pixel size.

Nokia N8 Features "The Biggest Sensor In A Mobile Device"

Nokia Conversations published a conversation with Damian Dinning, Nokia’s main man for imaging describing the camera portion of the newly announced 12MP N8 camera phone. The official HW spec for the phone does not tell the sensor size, while Damian says it's "the biggest sensor in a mobile device". One of the tweets seemingly belonging to Nokia insider reports that the sensor size is 1/2-inch. GSMArena claims the sensor size is 1/1.9-inch without disclosing its sources. These numbers translate into about 1.6-1.7um pixel size.

Nokia Conversations writes:

"The team behind the Nokia N8’s camera want to set new benchmarks. Not just for the quality of the still image camera, but the video recording as well. Across both uses, the team have been optimising each specific element of the device’s camera for as many use cases as possible. Cracking Improving the low light performance nut is one of the hardest challenges for mobile device cameras. Naturally, that’s where the camera team started. This time though, the effort was focussed not just on still images, but on video too.

In dramatically improving low light performance, the team were able to improve performance in bright conditions as well."

N8 records 720p/25fps HD video. The images it produces (both still and moving) are said to "sport a surprisingly high degree of detail, but without any much of the noise you see in images from some other devices". The sample pictures and video seem to confirm that.

The phone is expected to go on sale in Q3, 2010.

2010 Vertically Integrated Pixel Sensors Workshop Materials On-Line

Electrons and Holes blog posted the link to the materials presented at Workshop on Vertically Integrated Pixel Sensors - VIPS 2010, held on April 22-24, 2010 in Pavia, Italy. While the workshop mostly concentrates of radiation and particle detectors, it has few presentations showing interesting current and future works coming from 3D integration:

IMEC slides show 3D integration roadmap:

If/when 1 TSV per group of pixels approach is adapted, it would completely redefine the speed and noise trade-offs in the future sensors. The image processing pipeline might be lagging though.

Another slide presents IMEC work on crosstalk reduction in BSI sensors:

Yet another IMEC slide talks about backside passivation trade-offs:

Fraunhofer Instutute together with Berlin University presented quite impressive photos of wafer-level cameras:

ST too presented its WLC packaging and process:

Teradyne Sees No Image Sensors Recovery

Seeking Alpha: Teradyne Q1 2010 Earnings call has few words about image sensor tester sales still being slow. Basically, Teradyne does not believe it loses market share on sensor testers market. Rather, it says that the market has not recovered yet.

Qualtre Promises to Solve Gyro's Slow Drift Problem

PR Newswire, EETimes: Qualtre is developing a solid-state multi-axis MEMS gyroscopes digital camera image stabilization, among other things. Commercially available MEMS gyroscopes serving these applications have delicate moving mass structures vibrating at low frequencies of 5-50KHz, making them susceptible to bias drift over time, temperature and vibration. Qualtre gyroscopes operate at high frequency (2-10MHz) bulk acoustic modes to provide superior mechanical signal amplification with excellent bias stability over an extended temperature range.

If Qualtre really delivers a product with greatly reduced drift over time, it would be a major improvement in long exposure image stabilization. So far the gyro's slow drift is the main reason that still image stabilization is less than perfect at 1-2s exposures.

Founded in 2008, Qualtre is a venture-backed company founded by Dr. Farrokh Ayazi from Georgia Tech's Integrated MEMS Laboratory. The company just announced that it has completed an $8M Series B round of financing, bringing the total funds raised to $13M. Matrix Partners and Pilot House Ventures participated both A and B investment rounds with no new investor joined.

Toshiba To Boost CMOS Image Sensor Output By 20%

Nikkei Business News: Toshiba plans to increase production of its CMOS sensors by 20% during the April-September half.

The access to full article is restricted to subscribers only. It would be great if somebody with the full access can provide more details on this.

Webcast on CMOS Image Sensors Technologies & Markets

Yole Développement to hold webcast on CMOS image sensors technologies & markets on May 6, 2010. Thanks to R.F. for sending me the link.

IMEC Demos Video Fusion

Repost from Electrons and Holes blog: At 2010 NAB Show IMEC announced "virtual camera" merging few HD video streams into a one where a viewpoint can be smoothly changed. Now IMEC published a Youtube video showing the system's amazing capabilities: