Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Image Sensor

Photobit Corporation

Pasadena, CA

The firm has developed high-performance CMOS image sensors using "active-pixel" architectures. These chips essential put the functions for a camera onto a chip.

• The firm has recently release PB-MV40, the worlds fastest 4-mega pixel CMOS image sensor. The sensor captures images at speeds up to 240 frames per second (fps) at full resolution, resulting in a through put of a gigabyte per second.

• The firm has been purchased by Micron.
• The PB-MV4further expands the firms reach into the machine vision market by combining high resolution with imaging speeds suitable for a wide range of applications including electronic inspections, microscopy, automotive crash testing and motion picture special effects.
• The firm, a pioneer and leading supplier of CMOS image sensor products, on February 27, 01 announced completion of its US$25 million finance round. Investors included, among others, Hitachi Ltd. and Intel Capital.
• The firm has a long track record in the conception, design, implementation, test, and delivery of custom active-pixel CMOS image sensors. To date, the company has designed and delivered over 40 different sensors for such commercial customers as Basler, Eastman Kodak, Gentex.
• The firm has developed sensors for the U.S. Government under SBIR and other contracts -for NASA, the U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, and the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA).
• The company works with qualified foundries that are chosen to suit either the project's cost and performance needs or the customer’s preference.

• Silicon can receive data more capably than the human eye or standard film. This ability and advanced technology are the basis of high-performance CMOS sensors that capture images at speeds of over 500 frames per second--at mega pixel-plus resolution. The human eye, for comparison, perceives smooth motion at just 30 frames per second.
• The list below contains some of the types of commercial and industrial products image sensors are used in today:
  Machine Vision/Motion Analysis Security/Surveillance
  Automotive / Medicine Imagery
  Biometrics / Broadcast Television
  
• CMOS image sensors using less than half a watt on a 3.3-volt power supply make it possible to record and interpret complex high-speed events. Built into robotic cameras as part of a machine-vision system, they can visualize volume, sort, detect flaws, enable machine navigation, improve manufacturing process control, boost throughput, analyze problems, prevent accidents, and render more accurate detail in scientific and medical applications. CMOS sensors are also playing a role in such diverse applications as ballistics, sports performance, automotive crash tests, and explosion analysis.
• Applications for CMOS image sensors include: the PC video camera market, where one Photobit customer is Logitech [NASD: LOGIY] and its popular QuickCam™ Express; medical imaging, where customers include Given Imaging, for its "camera-in-a-pill," and Schick Technologies [OTCBB: SCHK], for dental radiography; imaging systems for the automotive industry, where Gentex [NASD: GNTX] is a customer and business partner; and the machine-vision market, where Photobit is strategically allied with Germany-based Basler AG.

Return to NASA SBIR Success Listings

Optics; Sensors; Software

Curator: SBIR Support