Aptina Imaging now can assemble image sensors, lenses, and other components into a camera phone package. The integration happens earlier in the manufacturing process, when the sensors are still part of their silicon wafer, than is typical today.
(Credit: Micron)
Memory chipmaker Micron Technology has launched its image-sensor business as a more independent division called Aptina Imaging, a move the company believes will improve its flexibility and business potential.
The new subsidiary is based in San Jose, Calif., a Silicon Valley location that's a long way from Micron's Boise, Idaho, headquarters. It will employ several hundred of Micron's 19,000 employees, Micron said.
"We need the additional flexibility and identity to be able to grow the way the markets we see are growing," said Shane Thomas, director of product marketing for the imaging business.
For example, Aptina will have a dedicated sales force and get new options for finding manufacturing capacity to build its products, Thomas said. "We're able to respond more quickly to our customers' needs."
Thomas wouldn't comment on two interesting business possibilities, however: whether Micron might be packaging Aptina for sale or spin-off and whether Aptina might use other fabrication facilities besides Micron's.
"We're always open to exploring other options for our business, but we're not commenting beyond that," spokeswoman Kirstin Bordner said about the possibility of a spin-off.
Using other fabrication facilities could mean Aptina wouldn't have to compete with other Micron manufacturing priorities, and other companies have expertise. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, for example, builds sensors for Kodak and made a cutting-edge sensor prototype developed by Stanford researcher Keith Fife.
New products, but are smaller pixels better?
Aptina also has several new product developments for its image sensors.
Most significant in the near term is a refinement of the company's existing process for sensors whose pixels measure 1.75 microns (millionths of a meter) across. The new version improves quantum efficiency (the ability to detect small amounts of light), fill factor (the amount of the pixel that's devoted to capturing light rather than electronics), and dark current (electronic noise that occurs even when there's no actual light to generate a signal in the sensor).
Aptina Imaging's new logo
(Credit: Micron)And Aptina has a new chip using the process, a 9-megapixel model of the "1/2.3" format that's very common in compact cameras.
The company also said its first chips using 1.4-micron pixels will be in production this summer. And it's begun making engineering samples of chips with 1.2-micron pixels that will be on sale in 2009.
Making pixels smaller means more can be put on a single chip of a fixed size, or more smaller, cheaper chips can be used to reach a certain megapixel count. But there's a possible penalty: smaller pixels can produce more image noise. Bucking the trend, Nikon's new D3 SLR has comparatively gargantuan 8.45-micron pixels and works well in low-light conditions even at a sensitivity setting of ISO 6,400.
Thomas said Micron is making sure image quality is level or better as it goes to smaller pixels, though.
"We're going to provide 1.4-micron pixels that are equal to if not greater (in quality) to 1.75 micron pixels. And 1.75 is better than 2.2," Thomas said. "Clearly, if you just shrink the pixel and you don't make enhancements to the other stuff around it, you're not going to get what you want. We're absolutely focusing on more than just shrinking the pixel."
Aptina Imaging's camera module, shown in front, back, and side views to the upper left, measures 4x4x.2.5mm. A conventional phone camera module is at the lower right.
(Credit: Micron)
Teensy cell phone cameras--now prepackaged
On the mobile-phone side of the business, Aptina announced a significant development, a much greater degree of integration that means the manufacturing fab will produce not just image sensors but full-fledged camera modules. Lenses and other components are attached directly to the silicon wafer, and mobile-phone manufacturers can buy the whole module instead of just the sensor from one company and other components from another.
The approach is reminiscent of buying processed food rather than raw ingredients in grocery stories, a practice that can be convenient for buyers but that also boosts profit margins for suppliers. Thomas preferred to express the idea as "adding more value to the complete value chain."
The camera package measures just 4x4x2.5mm--a significant notch smaller than conventional phone packages. Aptina hopes this means it will be adopted in the hundreds of millions of low-end phones sold today that still don't have cameras.
The sensor itself has VGA resolution--640x480 pixels--and its dimensions are the teensy 1/11 format, Thomas said. The camera modules will be shipping in samples in the second quarter and will be in production "shortly thereafter," Thomas said.
Micron plans to announce a new image sensor for cars Wednesday that can keep an eye on you as well as on the road.
Micron's MT9V023 image sensor for vehicular video chores
(Credit: Micron)The company's charmingly named MT9V023 sensors are geared for a long list of ways that increasingly electronic cars will use cameras in an attempt to improve safety and convenience. The company is selling samples of the 752x480-pixel, 60-frame-per-second sensor at $25 apiece and expects them to be used in cars to ship in late 2008.
Some U.S. vehicles have cameras to improve rear-view vision when backing up--the Hummer H2 uses a Micron sensor for such a purpose--but Micron believes cameras will become common. They're already in half of Japanese cars and should be in half of U.S. cars by 2014 or 2015, said Curtis Stith, director of marketing for Micron's imaging new markets.
"The volume potential is pretty interesting," he said, adding that half the U.S. market is 7.5 million vehicles per year, and luxury cars likely will come with more than one sensor. "That's a reason why we're pursuing the market."
Cameras in Japan are used most often for two reasons: to supply video to aid in backing up and to aid in nosing out into traffic around corners without having to actually poke into traffic, he said. There, camera use is made easier by the fact that many cameras are already equipped with in-dash video screens; in the United States, that feature is largely available only for cars with navigation systems that often are a $2,000 option.
Stith enumerated a long list of in-camera camera uses, some of them shipping now:
• Volvo's XC90 SUV uses three cameras: one for backing up and two for monitoring the blind spots to either side of the car.
• Cameras can be used to check for vehicles that are destined for a collision, telling the car to deploy air bags or tighten seat belts. The Hyundai Move in Japan uses this application, he said.
• Another forward-looking camera can check if a driver is unintentionally drifting out of a lane, using an algorithm that factors in speed and how sharply the steering wheel is being turned to distinguish between unintentional drifting and deliberate lane changes.
• Yet another front-mounted camera could keep an eye out for oncoming night traffic, automatically switching headlights between dimmed and high beams.
• A camera mounted on top of the steering column can monitor the frequency and duration of a driver's blinks to guard against drowsy driving. If blinks become too rapid or protracted, the car can sound an alarm to jolt the driver awake.
• An internal camera can help identify passengers to control how air bags should be deployed--for example, with less force when protecting children.
• Another camera could let parents watch their children bicker in the distant reaches of a vast van or SUV.
The Micron sensor has multiple registers so that one, two or three applications can monitor video from a single camera. For forward-looking possibilities such as crash prediction or headlight dimming, the camera is typically mounted in front of the rear-view mirror inside the car so it doesn't get coated with bugs.
Micron's sensor is built using complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) manufacturing process that lets processing logic be attached to the sensor.
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