CMOSIS Global Shutter Pixels

ElectroIQ: CMOSIS publishes a fairly detailed article "Global shutter image sensors" by Guy Maynants. The article compares few types of GS pixels, dividing them into charge domain and voltage domain families:

CDS charge domain pixel

CMOSIS' CDS voltage domain pixel

iPhone 6 Camera Features "Focus Pixels"

Apple iPhone6 and iPhone6 Plus smartphones feature new 8MP camera and sensor. While keeping the same pixel size and count, the new sensor features "Focus pixels" and 1080p60 video with HDR mode and "auto image stabilization" (on top of OIS in 6 Plus model and EIS in iPhone 6):

"Focus Pixels are enabled by the new Apple-designed image signal processor. They provide the sensor with more information about your image, giving you better and faster autofocus that you can even see in preview."

"Auto image stabilization makes up for motion blur and hand shakiness by taking four photos with a short exposure time. Then the best parts of those photos are combined into one image with as little noise, subject motion, and hand shake as possible."

Mobileye Valuation Climbs Up and Up

SeekingAlpha: ADAS vision processor maker Mobileye climbs to about 2x of its IPO valuation a month ago, crossing $11b mark. The most recent surge is attributed to Toyota design win:

Fermilab Uses Ziptronix Technology to Bond 3-Layer Imager

Marketwired: Ziptronix Direct Bond Interconnect (DBI) hybrid bonding has been used by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in is three-layer imager, made with wafer-to-wafer and die-to-wafer processes. The demonstrator, a vertically integrated x-ray photon imaging chip (VIPIC) detector, was developed by a collaboration of scientists and engineers from Fermilab, Brookhaven National Laboratory and AGH University from Poland.

First, the wafer-to-wafer bonding was used to bond two ASIC wafers with TSVs. Then, the bonded wafer pair is thinned to expose the TSVs on one side, then singulated. The singulated die stacks are then bonded to an x-ray sensor wafer using die-to-wafer hybrid bonding. Subsequent thinning of the other side of the bonded wafer pair allows backside connections to the 3-layer assembly.

"Implementing DBI hybrid bonding enables us to design sophisticated combinations of sensors and readout electronics," said Ron Lipton, Staff Scientist, Fermilab. "By enabling vertical signals through stacked sensor, readout and processing layers, we can design large-scale arrays that are side-edge buttable with high fill factor."

"This is an advanced three-layer imaging chip manufactured using DBI hybrid bonding," said Paul Enquist, CTO, Ziptronix. "Electrical data shows that this approach achieves lower noise, higher bandwidth and higher gain due to lower capacitive load when compared with parts stacked using bumping. This increases the sensitivity of the 3D image sensors, making them ideal for use in high-end applications."

Dynamic Vision Sensor Demo

Toby Delbruck, Zurich University, Switzerland, posted a Youtube demo of his Dynamic Vision Sensor: "Conventional vision sensors see the world as a series of frames. Successive frames contain enormous amounts of redundant information, wasting memory access, RAM, disk space, energy, computational power and time. In addition, each frame imposes the same exposure time on every pixel, making it difficult to deal with scenes containing very dark and very bright regions.

The Dynamic Vision Sensor (DVS) solves these problems by using patented technology that works like your own retina. Instead of wastefully sending entire images at fixed frame rates, only the local pixel-level changes caused by movement in a scene are transmitted – at the time they occur. The result is a stream of events at microsecond time resolution, equivalent to or better than conventional high-speed vision sensors running at thousands of frames per second."

Ambarella Prepares 14nm ISP

SeekingApha's Ambarella quarterly call transcript has an update on the company's upcoming 14nm products:

Fermi Wang - President and CEO:

First of all, 14 nanometer is still one of our main focuses on the R&D side this year, and it’s essential to us, because we believe when we deliver our 14 nanometer products for our next generation camera products, it will help us continue to improve our performance and also increase the gap between us and competitors in terms of power consumption and video performance.

And the current schedule, we are still on track, and we believe we will have a product coming out next year.

EETimes on Omnivision Takeover Offer

EETimes-Asia publishes an interview with Nicky Lu, chairman of Etron (Hsinchu, Taiwan), chair of the Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association and chair of the World Semiconductor Council, talking about China intentions in semiconductors. Few quotes on the offer to Omnivision:

If it succeeds in the OmniVision acquisition, China can easily take OminVision's business away from TSMC and bring it to SMIC. As far as Lu is concerned, "The game is fair, and things in China are moving faster than ever."

By taking over the world's leading CMOS image sensor vendor, China will gain instant access to the global market and the company's formidable market share. More importantly, such a deal generates demand for volume production of CMOS image sensors in China (not in Taiwan)—enough to fill the capacity of home-grown Chinese fabs like Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) based in Shanghai.