SiOnyx Says Black Silicon Sensors with 2e Read Noise Possible

SiOnyx technology features in Laser Focus World article on black silicon advances by James E. Carey, principal scientist and co-founder and Martin U. Pralle is VP of business development at SiOnyx. Few quotes:

"A combination of ultralow noise image sensor design and our proprietary black silicon NIR enhanced sensing technology enables broad-spectral-response sensors operating from 400 to 1200 nm with approximately 2 e- of read noise within a monolithic CMOS solution. Extended quantum efficiency (trademarked XQE) SiOnyx sensors deliver increased IR quantum efficiency to enable as much as a 10X improvement (for wavelengths greater than 1000 nm) compared to incumbent CMOS solutions."

"The optimized, proprietary ultrafast laser process does not cause an increase in dark current, read noise, or lag as compared with that of standard process control devices. This ability to significantly boost quantum efficiency (QE) while not degrading any other device parameters is a critical achievement."

A scene is captured with a SiOnyx camera in starry moonless
night (note the clear star field in the sky) at 30 frames/s,
showing a 1064 nm laser designator on target.

Forza and TowerJazz Continue Partnership

Business Wire: Forza Silicon and TowerJazz continue their strategic partnership to design and produce mixed-signal and image sensor chips utilizing TowerJazz’s process. During their 11-year relationship, Forza Silicon has completed many projects. Recent developments include the following:

• 133 Mpixel, 60 FPS image sensor
• Low power global shutter SOC imager
• Family of sensors for dental X-ray
• Small size endoscopy sensor
• High-speed global shutter sensor

"We joined TowerJazz’s Design Center Program several years ago and have seen significant efficiencies since we’ve aligned our business processes to meet the time-to-market requirements of our customers," said Barmak Mansoorian, Forza Silicon President. "This partnership is a natural complement to our business model of providing end-to-end design engineering and manufacturing services from circuit design through to production testing."

"We are excited to work with partners such as Forza Silicon who have proven to be true innovators in the CMOS image sensor field," said Avi Strum, VP & General Manager, CMOS Sensors Business Unit, VP Sales, Europe. "Forza Silicon’s great depth of talent and proven ability to work closely with a customer on an idea, collaborate on a design, and follow through to volume production is critical to deliver advanced solutions."

Superconducting Image Sensor Measures Energy of Each Photon, with Timestamp

IEEE Spectrum publishes an article on the Array Camera for Optical to Near IR Spectrophotometry (ARCONS) developed by a group led by Ben Mazin, a physics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara with colleagues and collaborators from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Oxford University, and Fermilab.

"The heart of ARCONS is a 60-nanometer-thick layer of titanium nitride (TiN) carried on a silicon base. Depending on the ratio of nitrogen to titanium, the layer becomes superconducting at about 1 Kelvin. (As the proportion of nitrogen decreases, the superconducting transition temperature and band-gap energies get lower; consequently, the imager's sensitivity to incoming photons increases. At its tiniest, the band gap of the superconducting TiN is about three orders of magnitude smaller than in a typical semiconductor.)

The TiN layer is etched into a 44 x 46 pixel array, and each pixel gets its own individually tuned microwave resonator and a microlens. The ensemble is enclosed in a lens-topped Dewar jar cooled to 0.1 K. When a photon strikes the sensor surface, is sends a ripple through the superconductor, breaking up the paired electrons—the Cooper pairs—that carry superconducting currents. The more energetic the photon, the more Cooper pairs are divided. Disrupting these pairs alters the impedance of the pixel. This electrical change, in turn, shifts the amplitude and phase of the pixel’s resonance in proportion to the number of Cooper-pair disruptions.

The researchers use a microwave frequency comb to interrogate and read out all 2024 pixels over a single microwave channel. Each pixel can be read about 2500 times per second, accurately seeing colors that range from the ultraviolet (100 nm) through the visible spectrum and into the infrared (longer than 5000 nm)."

ISORG Demos 96x96 Pixel on Plastic Sensor

ISORG and Plastic Logic show flexible 96 x 96 pixel sensor in this Youtube video:

Pelican Imaging Presentation

Engadget posted a video presentation by Pelican Imaging at the Expand Show in NYC. The presenter is Paul Gallagher, Pelican's VP Strategic Market Development, incorrectly labeled as CEO in the video:

Panasonic Announces Lowest Noise Sensor on the Market, More

Panasonic announces MN34230PL, a 4/3-inch 16.4MP CMOS image sensor for FourThirds format DSLRs. The sensor is said to be the "Lowest noise sensor in the market" and features "New “On Chip Filter” for improved sensitivity":

The other newly announced sensors are 1/3-inch 1.33MP MN34210PL and 1/2.86-inch 2.36MP MN34220PL for security applications. The sensors feature WDR mode and speeds of 60fps at full resolution.

Omnivision Announces 2MP 1.75um Pixel Sensors

PR Newswire: Omnivision announces two 2MP CameraChip sensors for feature phones, smartphones and tablets. The OV2680 and OV2685 leverage OmniVision's 1.75um OmniPixel3-HS pixel. Compared to the previous generation 2MP sensors, the OV2680 and OV2685 are cost-effective upgrade solutions that deliver improved image and video quality in a smaller die size. Both sensors support an active array of 1600 x 1200 pixels operating at 30fps and cropped 720p video at 60fps.
The OV2680 RAW sensor fits into an industry standard 5.5 x 5.5 x 4 mm module, while the OV2685 is a fully integrated SoC sensor that fits into an industry standard 6 x 6 x 4 mm module. The OV2680 and OV2685 are available in CSP package. Both sensors are currently sampling, and are expected to enter volume production in Q1 2014.

Toshiba Announces Automotive VGA HDR Sensor

Business Wire: Toshiba announces sample shipments of a VGA, 1/4-inch HDR CMOS image sensor, the TCM5126GBA, for automotive view cameras. The sensor is based on 5.6um pixels and delivers 60fps. The product has a small CSP package TSV. This is said to reduce the size by 30% against equivalent products.

Update: PRNewswire copy of the PR.

Samsung Mobile Imaging Iconography

Samsung Semiconductor blog published a nice iconography on image sensors in smartphones:

Engadget Interviews Gesture Interface Companies

Engadget publishes a video interview of representative of Pelican Imaging, Samsung and Leap Motion from its Expand conference in NYC: