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.

Sony to Announce 10x Sensitive Sensors Next Friday

Tech-On: Sony developed three IP cameras featuring the new BSI sensor with 10x sensitivity over the previous products. The lowest illuminance of a subject is 0.05 lux comparing with 0.5 lux in the previous generation of Sony BSI sensors. Sony is expected to announce the three cameras in series, starting on Sept. 12, 2014. The news cameras also feature HDR mode based on fusion of two frames with different shutter speeds:

An HDR image taken by the newly-developed camera using infrared light in the dark (right) and an image taken by an existing camera (source: Sony)

CMOSIS Plans Expansion in the US

Evertiq: CMOSIS, has assigned Bruce Bradford as the new Director of Business Development based in Cary, North Carolina to manage CMOSIS operations and growth in America. Bruce Bradford used to work for Fairchild Imaging and e2v.

"We are extremely delighted with this important step in the further development of CMOSIS as a leading player in advanced CMOS image sensors," said Lou Hermans, COO, CMOSIS. "We are investing in establishing CMOSIS America and the assignment of Bruce Bradford to support our existing customer base and to pursue new relationships and opportunities. We are delighted to have Bruce Bradford joining our team as the newly appointed Director of Business Development. We see America as an important region with lots of opportunities for our business. Bruce’s long history with CMOS sensors, CCD’s and camera systems marketplace will bring our business in America to the next level. A local, US presence was the logical step to achieve this."

"The investment in the new entity shows the dedication to support the business in the region," Bruce Bradford said.

Special Issue of IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices on Solid-State Image Sensors

Albert Theuwissen publishes a call for papers for a Special Issue of IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices on Solid-State Image Sensors. Previous special issues on solid-state image sensors were published in 1976, 1985, 1991, 1997, 2003 and 2009.

Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

1. Pixel device physics (New devices and structures, Advanced materials, Improved models and scaling, Advanced pixel circuits, Performance enhancement for QE, Dark current, Noise, Charge Multiplication Devices, etc.)
2. Image sensor design and performance (New architectures, Small pixels and Large format arrays, High dynamic range, 3D range capture, Low voltage, Low power, High frame rate readout, Scientific-grade, Single-Photon Sensitivity)
3. Image-sensor-specific peripheral circuits (ADCs and readout electronics, Color and image processing, Smart sensors and computational sensors, System on a chip)
4. Non-visible “image” sensors (Enhanced spectral response e.g., UV, NIR, High energy photon and particle detectors e.g., electrons, X-rays, Ions, Hybrid detectors, THz imagers)
5. Fabrication, packaging and manufacturing (stacked image sensors, back-side illuminated devices)
6. Miscellaneous topics related to image sensor technology

Submission Deadline: February 28th, 2015
Targeted Publication Date: January 2016

Guest Editor-in-Chief:
Prof. dr. Albert Theuwissen, Harvest Imaging, Bree, Belgium, and Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands.

MIPI C-PHY Offers Higher Speeds, Better Robustness

EETimes: While MIPI M-PHY is still struggling to be adopted in mobile cameras, MIPI comes up with a multi-level signalling scheme in its newest C-PHY standard proposal. "C-PHY uses a 3-pin architecture and an embedded clock. Each of the pin trios represents one lane with up to three lanes supported for a total of 9 pins. It also uses a new encoding scheme to increase the number of bits transmitted to approximately 2.28 bits per symbol. The projected data rate is 2.5 Gsymbols/s for an effective data rate of about 5.7 Gbits/s.

A further C-PHY nuance is that the signal is transmitted single-ended, but received as a differential signal. Clock is recovered from the earliest edge of the symbol transition. A delay circuit with negative hold times is used to sample data, an approach that is potentially more resistant to noise and jitter."

Why ISO Changed Resolution Chart

Image Engineering publishes explanations on why ISO changed the resolution chart in Feb. 2014.

"The problems users had with the old chart:

1. It is defined as a high contrast test chart with a white background. This sometimes causes clipping in the highlights or/and the shadows.
2. Visual analysis is often impossible
3. The high contrast edge is subject to sharpening which leads to misleading results when looking at an SFR derived from the edge"

The new chart is sine Siemens star image considered to be better suited for the resolution measurements, although system sharpening can still present a measurement challenge.