Himax Imaging, Inc., a subsidiary of Himax Technologies, Inc. (“Himax” or the “Company”), a leading global supplier and fabless manufacturer of display drivers and other semiconductor products, today announced the HM5530 UltraSenseIR™ product, a low power and low noise 5.5 Megapixel Back Side Illuminated (“BSI”) CMOS Image Sensor (“CIS”) with more than 40% quantum efficiency in the Near Infrared (“NIR”) spectrum enabling the next generation of embedded computer vision applications such as 3D camera, autonomous navigation, event and pattern recognition and human-machine interaction.
“Computer and machine vision devices operate unnoticed to human perception by using Near Infrared light sources and sensors because NIR is not visible to the human eye. Silicon based image sensor, which is the dominant technology for visual imaging applications due to advantages in cost, power and scalability, is not sensitive to the Near Infrared spectrum and needs to be compensated by using relatively large pixel sizes to confine the resolution of the sensor that can fit in an embedded device,” said Amit Mittra, CTO of Himax Imaging. “With our breakthrough UltraSenseIR™ technology, Himax combines the advantages of our highly integrated, low power and low noise BSI sensor technologies with NIR and visible sensitivity in a very small 2.0-micron pixel size to enable high resolution computer vision and NIR imaging applications.”
The HM5530 consumes less than 140mW at 5.5 Megapixel operating at 30 frames per second over industry compliant MIPI CSI2 interface. The sensor timing supports frame synchronization to an external LED or Laser Diode light source, and can be programmed using a standard two wire serial interface. With engineering samples ready, Himax Imaging Inc. is collaborating with platform providers to provide integrated solution for computer vision.
Source: http://www.himax.com.tw/