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.
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.
"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:
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.
Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
- 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.)
- 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)
- Image-sensor-specific peripheral circuits (ADCs and readout electronics, Color and image processing, Smart sensors and computational sensors, System on a chip)
- 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)
- Fabrication, packaging and manufacturing (stacked image sensors, back-side illuminated devices)
- 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."
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:
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.
"The problems users had with the old chart:
- It is defined as a high contrast test chart with a white background. This sometimes causes clipping in the highlights or/and the shadows.
- Visual analysis is often impossible
- 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.
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