EVG Reports Strong Growth in Image Sensor Stacking Machinery
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PRNewswire: EV Group (EVG) announces that the company is experiencing strong demand for its automated 300-mm polymer adhesive wafer bonding systems. Over the past 12 months, the company's order intake has doubled for these systems, including the EVG560, GEMINI and EVG850 TB/DB series of wafer bonders, includes multiple orders from foundries and outsourced semiconductor assembly and test providers headquartered in Asia. Much of the increase in demand is being fueled by advanced packaging manufacturers ramping up production of CMOS image sensors with TSV interconnects.
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Intel Invests in Almalence
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PRNewswire: Almalence announces that it has received an investment from Intel Capital. The funds will be used by Almalence to develop the next generation mobile imaging technology enabling mobile cameras to achieve the image quality level of DSLR cameras. Intel and Almalence have also entered into a strategic collaboration to bring Almalence's technology to Intel's architecture.
Almalence is a privately owned company with headquarters in Austin, Texas and the team distributed across the world - USA, Russia, Israel, China and South Korea. The company was founded in 2005 by Russian engineers Dmitry Shmunk and Eugene Panich, and has a track record of working with global mobile device manufacturers, such as Huawei and Sharp. Almalence's R&D activity is concentrated in Novosibirsk, Russia.
Eugene Panich, CEO of Almalence said: "Working with Intel will help us to enter a new stage in product development as we take the image quality of mobile cameras to new heights."
Arjun Kapur, Intel CVP, Platform Engineering Group, and GM, Imaging and Camera Technologies Group, said: "We look forward to working with Almalence to deliver such capabilities to the Intel mobile ecosystem."
Here is a Youtube video presenting Amalence Supersensor technology:
Almalence is a privately owned company with headquarters in Austin, Texas and the team distributed across the world - USA, Russia, Israel, China and South Korea. The company was founded in 2005 by Russian engineers Dmitry Shmunk and Eugene Panich, and has a track record of working with global mobile device manufacturers, such as Huawei and Sharp. Almalence's R&D activity is concentrated in Novosibirsk, Russia.
Eugene Panich, CEO of Almalence said: "Working with Intel will help us to enter a new stage in product development as we take the image quality of mobile cameras to new heights."
Arjun Kapur, Intel CVP, Platform Engineering Group, and GM, Imaging and Camera Technologies Group, said: "We look forward to working with Almalence to deliver such capabilities to the Intel mobile ecosystem."
Here is a Youtube video presenting Amalence Supersensor technology:
The Colorado Mine Waste Spill: The Fix That Broke
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On Wednesday, Aug. 5, heavy-equipment operators employed by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were working at the site of the abandoned Gold King mine near Silverton, which is about a hundred miles northeast of the Four Corners area in southwestern Colorado. The mine had not operated since 1923, and the workers weren't trying to get gold out of the mine. Instead, they were trying to make sure that thousands of gallons of toxic-mineral-laden water that had filled large parts of the mine would stay there. Their efforts were part of a larger project to clean up some nearby mines, an effort that would be spoiled if toxic water were to leak out of the Gold King mine and run downhill to the other mines.
So, the workers had good intentions. But good intentions don't always stop bad things from happening.
It turned out that there was a lot more water backed up behind the "adit" (the horizontal mine opening) than the workers realized. Apparently, if they had bored a test hole beforehand, they might have determined from the high pressure that it was dangerous to do what they were doing. But bore holes cost money and time, the geology of the site made such a project tricky, and so they went ahead with some shoring-up operations.
Exactly what happened has not yet come to light, but somehow, the actions of the construction machinery disturbed the delicate balance of whatever loose rock was keeping the water in the mine, and here it came. Some veiled references about prompt action preventing fatalities imply that things must have gotten pretty exciting for a while, as a flood of yellow acid water poured from the mine's opening down the hill to find its way to Cement Creek, where it spread to watersheds that cover parts of three states. Some of these now-polluted streams pass through Indian reservations, and the Navajo Nation's president Russell Begaye has declared that his tribe is going to sue the EPA.
Clearly, the EPA has a mess on its hands. But what about those good intentions? Doesn't that count for anything?
The Gold King spill has drawn attention to an ongoing problem shared by many regions where mining was carried out with more enthusiasm than wisdom by operators who did only what they had to do to get the gold out. As anyone knows who as a child played in sand on the beach with a toy shovel, holes in the ground dug below the water table eventually fill up with water. Abandoned mines often contain soluble compounds such as iron sulfide (pyrite, or fool's gold) and minerals containing toxic elements such as lead, cadmium, and arsenic. When water gets into these mines, the water acquires significant concentrations of these undesirable chemicals, and oxidized pyrite makes it highly acidic. Sooner or later, water usually finds its way out of an old mine, either through natural fissures in the rock or more violently as water pressure builds up and breaches blockages, which is what happened at the Gold King mine, with a little accidental help from the EPA.
What one generation messed up, a succeeding generation is trying to clean up, but the task is Herculean—or maybe even Sisyphean. Sisyphus was a mythological Greek king who played tricks on the gods. The gods, in particular Zeus, didn't appreciate this, and so when Sisyphus died, Zeus condemned him in Hades to try to roll a boulder up a hill. Just as he'd get nearly to the top, the enchanted boulder would elude his grasp and roll back downhill, and Sisyphus had to lather, rinse, and repeat, so to speak—forever.
The EPA won't have to clean up mines forever, but with 22,000 abandoned mines in Colorado alone, they have enough to keep them busy for quite a while. The fact that the EPA has resources to prevent mine-water spills at all is due to the passage of laws such as the Superfund act, which helps pay to clean up environmental messes that the owners (or former owners) can't afford to fix. The agreement under which the EPA was working on the Gold King mine wasn't a full-fledged Superfund situation (such a label was feared to discourage tourism), but millions of government dollars were committed to the cleanup anyway. And it was in pursuit of this type of cleanup that the site workers inadvertently caused exactly the kind of problem that they were there to prevent.
There is an opportunity here, even in this crisis, for engineers and engineering educators. It's hard enough to dig a mine without having it fall on your head, but as numerous accidents have shown, digging a mine is a piece of cake compared to trying to do anything with an old abandoned mine for which few records exist and maintenance ceased decades ago. But doing the kind of thing that the EPA is doing is engineering too—pure-D environmental engineering, but probably not of a kind that too many environmental engineering departments consider.
With so many abandoned mines to fix and federal money to fix them, one can imagine a new engineering subdiscipline of abandoned-mine remediation. Typically, new engineering disciplines are practiced under other guises for some time before anyone recognizes them as distinct from previous disciplines. For all I know, there may be a division of some civil engineering department somewhere that already teaches these things, but I doubt it. If there isn't, though, there ought to be.
Maybe all the education in the world might not have prevented the breach that caused the Gold King spill. Sometimes a bad thing is bound to happen no matter what you do. But now that we've had a bad example of how not to handle abandoned mines, maybe the academics and engineers can get together to develop best practices and procedures to prevent things like this from happening in the future.
Sources: I referred to articles on the spill carried in the online editions of the Washington Poston Aug. 10 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/08/10/what-the-epa-was-doing-when-it-sent-yellow-sludge-spilling-into-a-colorado-creek/and the Denver Post on Aug. 26 at http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28705984/epa-underestimated-water-pressure-led-colorado-mine-spill, as well as an article about the Navaho lawsuit at
https://www.rt.com/usa/312499-toxic-spill-tribes-epa/. The Wikipedia article on Sisyphus has some great details about exactly what it takes to tick off Greek gods, by the way.
Yole Interviews Sunex on ADAS Cameras
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Yole Developpement publishes an interview with Peter Hark, Director of Automotive Sales and Marketing at Sunex. Few quotes:
"The low-end of [ADAS] market concerning rear view cameras is very mature and not very dynamic. The high-end is more about high resolution surround-view cameras from which images are stitched together to give a bird’s eye view of a car, i.e. for parking assist purposes. This area is enjoying high growth. Another growth area are forward-facing cameras which, due to new regulations (especially NCAP in Europe, but also in the U.S.), are being increasingly adopted.
At Sunex, we’ve developed what we call the NoGhost technology, which is able to reduce straylight effects. This has great value for HDR sensors. <...> Likewise thermally-compensated optics add value to computer vision applications such as forward sensing cameras where they can extend the operational temperature range."
Sunex Youtube video shows its NoGhost lens advantages:
"The low-end of [ADAS] market concerning rear view cameras is very mature and not very dynamic. The high-end is more about high resolution surround-view cameras from which images are stitched together to give a bird’s eye view of a car, i.e. for parking assist purposes. This area is enjoying high growth. Another growth area are forward-facing cameras which, due to new regulations (especially NCAP in Europe, but also in the U.S.), are being increasingly adopted.
At Sunex, we’ve developed what we call the NoGhost technology, which is able to reduce straylight effects. This has great value for HDR sensors. <...> Likewise thermally-compensated optics add value to computer vision applications such as forward sensing cameras where they can extend the operational temperature range."
Sunex Youtube video shows its NoGhost lens advantages:
Yole Report on Camera Module Market
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Yole Developpement publishes 2015 Camera Module Industry Report. The Compact Camera Module (CCM) market is forecasted to double in the next five years.
"Driven by mobile and automotive applications, the CCM industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 16.8% from 2014 - 2020, reaching a total aggregate revenue of US$51B by 2020.
Automotive module revenue reached $1.2B in 2014, and growing at a CAGR of 36% should reach $7.9B by 2020. This exceptional growth has mainly benefited the CCM industry’s second-tier players, but the response of market leaders will be worth watching.
There is a different market trajectory for the lens and sensor markets, which are now maturing at ~14% CAGR with the emergence of giant billion-dollar companies. The CCM and auto-focus manufacturing markets, which are still very fragmented and growing at ~20% CAGR, should experience consolidation over the next five years.
The current CCM industry is controlled by Asian firms, mainly Korean and Japanese, but we’re also witnessing the rise of Chinese firms and the restructure of Taiwanese firms. An ongoing price war has leveled the market, and most players have operations in China or Vietnam."
"Driven by mobile and automotive applications, the CCM industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 16.8% from 2014 - 2020, reaching a total aggregate revenue of US$51B by 2020.
Automotive module revenue reached $1.2B in 2014, and growing at a CAGR of 36% should reach $7.9B by 2020. This exceptional growth has mainly benefited the CCM industry’s second-tier players, but the response of market leaders will be worth watching.
There is a different market trajectory for the lens and sensor markets, which are now maturing at ~14% CAGR with the emergence of giant billion-dollar companies. The CCM and auto-focus manufacturing markets, which are still very fragmented and growing at ~20% CAGR, should experience consolidation over the next five years.
The current CCM industry is controlled by Asian firms, mainly Korean and Japanese, but we’re also witnessing the rise of Chinese firms and the restructure of Taiwanese firms. An ongoing price war has leveled the market, and most players have operations in China or Vietnam."
IEEE Open Access Papers
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IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices opens an early access to ON Semi paper "A 47 Million Pixel High-Performance Interline CCD Image Sensor" by Shen Wang, Douglas A. Carpenter, Adam DeJager, James A. DiBella, James E. Doran, Robert P. Fabinski, Andrew Garland, James A. Johnson, and Ryan Yaniga. The 47MP CCD is said to be "the world’s highest resolution interline-transfer CCD, has been developed for industrial, machine vision, and aerial photography applications. The sensor features a 5.5-µm pixel, 16-output low-noise amplifier and a low-smear, fast-dump gate, horizontal lateral overflow drain, and on-chip temperature sensor. One challenge to manufacture this large sensor is stitching the sensor with different lithography tools, while still achieving equal or better image performance than its predecessor."
IEEE Journal on Solid-State Circuits publishes an open access paper "A Dynamic Vision Sensor With 1% Temporal Contrast Sensitivity and In-Pixel Asynchronous Delta Modulator for Event Encoding" by Yang, M., Liu, S.-C., and Delbruck, T., University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Switzerland. "A dynamic vision sensor (DVS) encodes temporal contrast (TC) of light intensity into address-events that are asynchronously transmitted for subsequent processing. This paper describes a DVS with improved TC sensitivity and event encoding."
Thanks to DSSB for the links!
IEEE Journal on Solid-State Circuits publishes an open access paper "A Dynamic Vision Sensor With 1% Temporal Contrast Sensitivity and In-Pixel Asynchronous Delta Modulator for Event Encoding" by Yang, M., Liu, S.-C., and Delbruck, T., University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Switzerland. "A dynamic vision sensor (DVS) encodes temporal contrast (TC) of light intensity into address-events that are asynchronously transmitted for subsequent processing. This paper describes a DVS with improved TC sensitivity and event encoding."
Thanks to DSSB for the links!
Tessera to Buy Ziptronix for $39M
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BusinessWire: Tessera announces the acquisition of Ziptronix for $39 million in cash. Ziptronix’s patented ZiBond direct bonding and DBI hybrid bonding technologies have been licensed to Sony for volume production of its CMOS image sensors.
Dan Donabedian, President and CEO of Ziptronix says, “We’ve taken our technology from concept to commercialization in the backside illuminated image sensor and RF markets. Joining the Tessera family of companies combines our efforts with a proven leader in technology development and licensing in the semiconductor industry. This is a great alignment of companies that can address rapidly expanding 2.5D and 3D-IC markets.”
The addition of the Ziptronix team will not change Tessera’s target operating expense structure. Tessera is making no adjustments to third quarter 2015 revenue or earnings per share guidance.
Dan Donabedian, President and CEO of Ziptronix says, “We’ve taken our technology from concept to commercialization in the backside illuminated image sensor and RF markets. Joining the Tessera family of companies combines our efforts with a proven leader in technology development and licensing in the semiconductor industry. This is a great alignment of companies that can address rapidly expanding 2.5D and 3D-IC markets.”
The addition of the Ziptronix team will not change Tessera’s target operating expense structure. Tessera is making no adjustments to third quarter 2015 revenue or earnings per share guidance.
Omnivision Quarterly Earnings Call
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SeekingAlpha publishes Omnivision's quarterly earnings call transcript. The company CEO Shaw Hong says on the acquisition status by Hua Capital Management, CITIC Capital, and GoldStone Investment:
"Currently, we expect the transaction will close in the third or fourth quarter of this fiscal year. However, the transaction is still subject to regulatory approvals, including antitrust review in the People’s Republic of China, review and clearance by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., clearance or approval under applicable Taiwan law, and other customary closing conditions.
As of today, we have not obtained all the necessary approvals, nor have we met all the closing conditions. As such, there’s no assurance that the proposed acquisition by the consortium will close."
Aurelio Cisneros, SVP of WW Sales updates:
"In our first fiscal quarter, we shipped 215 million units, as compared to 180 million units in our prior quarter, reflecting strength in our mobile market and strong growth in our automotive and security markets.
Unit sales of 8-megapixel and above represented approximately 19% of total shipments in the fiscal first quarter equivalent to the prior quarter. Unit sales of 3 to 5-megapixel category represented approximately 40% of total shipments, as compared to 38% in the prior quarter for the same category. Unit sales of 2-megapixel and below represented approximately 41% of total shipments, as compared to 43% in the prior quarter.
In terms of target markets, our mobile phone sales represented approximately 65% of revenues in the first fiscal quarter, as compared to 69% in the prior quarter. Our automotive segment represented 10% of sales, as compared to 9% in our prior quarter. Quarter-on-quarter, the automotive market showed a robust 25% growth.
One fast emerging category is the virtual reality or augmented reality headsets being designed by a vast variety of brand-name OEMs or high potential startups. This category has a broad scope of applications from entertainment, gaming, education, industrial, enterprise, or simply web surfing. We have begun shipping early mass production volumes to a Tier 1 brand-name customer, utilizing our highly specialized global shutter sensors. We are also engaged in several other virtual reality and augmented reality, headset potential applications and designs."
"Currently, we expect the transaction will close in the third or fourth quarter of this fiscal year. However, the transaction is still subject to regulatory approvals, including antitrust review in the People’s Republic of China, review and clearance by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., clearance or approval under applicable Taiwan law, and other customary closing conditions.
As of today, we have not obtained all the necessary approvals, nor have we met all the closing conditions. As such, there’s no assurance that the proposed acquisition by the consortium will close."
Aurelio Cisneros, SVP of WW Sales updates:
"In our first fiscal quarter, we shipped 215 million units, as compared to 180 million units in our prior quarter, reflecting strength in our mobile market and strong growth in our automotive and security markets.
Unit sales of 8-megapixel and above represented approximately 19% of total shipments in the fiscal first quarter equivalent to the prior quarter. Unit sales of 3 to 5-megapixel category represented approximately 40% of total shipments, as compared to 38% in the prior quarter for the same category. Unit sales of 2-megapixel and below represented approximately 41% of total shipments, as compared to 43% in the prior quarter.
In terms of target markets, our mobile phone sales represented approximately 65% of revenues in the first fiscal quarter, as compared to 69% in the prior quarter. Our automotive segment represented 10% of sales, as compared to 9% in our prior quarter. Quarter-on-quarter, the automotive market showed a robust 25% growth.
One fast emerging category is the virtual reality or augmented reality headsets being designed by a vast variety of brand-name OEMs or high potential startups. This category has a broad scope of applications from entertainment, gaming, education, industrial, enterprise, or simply web surfing. We have begun shipping early mass production volumes to a Tier 1 brand-name customer, utilizing our highly specialized global shutter sensors. We are also engaged in several other virtual reality and augmented reality, headset potential applications and designs."
Machine Vision Camera Trends
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Adimec publishes "Top 5 predictions for the future in machine vision." Out of the top 5, two trends are related to image sensors:
Thanks to TL for the link!
- Trend #1 From CCD to CMOS even for high-end machine vision and defense systems.
- Trend #2 Smaller pixels for industrial image sensors.
Thanks to TL for the link!
Connected Home Camera Demand Drops
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Electronics Weekly: Consumer demand for connected home products, including wireless security cameras, dropped dramatically in the first half of 2015, according to Argus Insights. "Early adopters have gotten what they need, and now products are not compelling typical consumers to create a connected home."
"The big buzz last year was over security cameras. Dropcam was huge, and made even more news when it was acquired by Nest Labs, which had previously been acquired by Google. (The recent Nest camera has been more coolly received.) Kickstarter launches, such as the Canary and Piper security cameras attracted a lot of attention to the market, resulting in more new product introductions, but the optimism of 2014 turned into the reality of 2015 as that market has dropped, due partly to connectivity and usability issues."
"The big buzz last year was over security cameras. Dropcam was huge, and made even more news when it was acquired by Nest Labs, which had previously been acquired by Google. (The recent Nest camera has been more coolly received.) Kickstarter launches, such as the Canary and Piper security cameras attracted a lot of attention to the market, resulting in more new product introductions, but the optimism of 2014 turned into the reality of 2015 as that market has dropped, due partly to connectivity and usability issues."
Samsung Requirements for DSC/DSLR Sensors
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Samsung presentation on DSC and DSLR cameras has a collection of statistical data on customer requests to the DSLR camera image sensors. Most of these requests are known, but now they come with statistics:
Then, Samsung shows how its new 65nm CIS process answers to the user requests:
According to an internal Samsung 2015 market forecast, the company aims to capture 27% market share in mobile CIS and 14% share in other CIS:
Then, Samsung shows how its new 65nm CIS process answers to the user requests:
According to an internal Samsung 2015 market forecast, the company aims to capture 27% market share in mobile CIS and 14% share in other CIS:
IISW 2015 Papers On-Line
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All papers of 2015 International Image Sensor Workshop (IISW) are now open for on-line access.
Fight for ADAS Market to Start
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IHS Electronics360 talks about many new companies coming to fight for the lucrative ADAS market, including the image processing side of it: Xilinx, Nvidia, Intel, Qualcomm.
SD Optics Presents Image Sensor Inspection Application
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SD Optics publishes a Youtube video showing how its MALS-based fast AF can be used for image sensor defect checks:
Arctic Sea Ice Collapse Threatens - Update 6
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The image below shows Arctic sea ice extent, with the blue dot indicating that extent for August 22, 2015, was 5.382 million square kilometers. The record shows that, at this time of the year, extent was only lower in 2007, 2011 and 2012.
There are a number of reasons why sea ice could fall dramatically over the next few weeks.
First of all, the situation today is in an even worse condition than one might conclude when looking at sea ice extent alone. The way NSIDC calculates extent is by first dividing the satellite image into a grid and then including each cell in extent that has 15% or more ice. So, if a few small and very thin pieces of ice floating in a cell happen to cover 15% of a cell, it is counted in as "sea ice".
There is quite a difference between the sea ice that was 5 meters thick north of Greenland in 2012 and the ice that is present there now. The image on the right shows the north-east corner of Greenland on the bottom left. There is almost no ice north of this point.
Thick sea ice is virtually absent compared to the situation in the year 2012 around this time of year, as illustrated by the image below that compares sea ice thickness on August 20, 2012 (left) with August 20, 2015 (right), from an earlier post.
Furthermore, sea surface temperatures are very high. The North Pacific, on August 23, 2015, was exactly 1°C (1.8°F) warmer than it was compared to the period from 1971 to 2000 (see Climate Reanalyzer image right).
As the image below shows, sea surface temperature anomalies are very high around North America. On August 23, 2015, sea surface temperature anomalies as high as 6.4°C (11.5°F) were recorded in the Bering Strait.
This is where warm waters from the Pacific Ocean are flowing into the Arctic Ocean.
The image below shows sea surface temperatures on August 22, 2015, indicating that a huge amount of ocean heat has accumulated in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North America.
The Gulf Stream is carrying much of this warm water toward the Arctic Ocean. On August 21, 2015, sea surface temperatures near Svalbard were as high as 17°C (62.6°F), a 12°C (21.5°F) anomaly, at the location marked by the green circle on the image below, showing sea surface temperatures in the top panel and sea surface temperature anomalies in the bottom panel.
The image below shows sea surface temperature anomalies in the Arctic as at August 23, 2015.
There still are a few weeks to go before sea ice can be expected to reach its minimum, at around half September 2015, while sea currents will continue to carry warmer water into the Arctic Ocean for months to come.
More open water increases the chance that storms will develop that will push the last remnants of the sea ice out of the Arctic Ocean, as discussed in earlier posts such as this one, while storms can also mix warm surface waters all the way down to the seafloor, as discussed in this earlier post. The Climate Reanalyzer forecast for August 26, 2015, on the right shows strong winds both in the Bering Strait and the North Atlantic.
Typhoons increase this danger. The Climate Reanalyzer forecast for August 27, 2015, below shows a typhoon in the Pacific Ocean close to the Arctic Ocean.
The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as discussed in the Climate Plan.
There are a number of reasons why sea ice could fall dramatically over the next few weeks.
There is quite a difference between the sea ice that was 5 meters thick north of Greenland in 2012 and the ice that is present there now. The image on the right shows the north-east corner of Greenland on the bottom left. There is almost no ice north of this point.
Thick sea ice is virtually absent compared to the situation in the year 2012 around this time of year, as illustrated by the image below that compares sea ice thickness on August 20, 2012 (left) with August 20, 2015 (right), from an earlier post.
As the image below shows, sea surface temperature anomalies are very high around North America. On August 23, 2015, sea surface temperature anomalies as high as 6.4°C (11.5°F) were recorded in the Bering Strait.
This is where warm waters from the Pacific Ocean are flowing into the Arctic Ocean.
The image below shows sea surface temperatures on August 22, 2015, indicating that a huge amount of ocean heat has accumulated in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North America.
The Gulf Stream is carrying much of this warm water toward the Arctic Ocean. On August 21, 2015, sea surface temperatures near Svalbard were as high as 17°C (62.6°F), a 12°C (21.5°F) anomaly, at the location marked by the green circle on the image below, showing sea surface temperatures in the top panel and sea surface temperature anomalies in the bottom panel.
The image below shows sea surface temperature anomalies in the Arctic as at August 23, 2015.
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| [ click on image to enlarge ] |
More open water increases the chance that storms will develop that will push the last remnants of the sea ice out of the Arctic Ocean, as discussed in earlier posts such as this one, while storms can also mix warm surface waters all the way down to the seafloor, as discussed in this earlier post. The Climate Reanalyzer forecast for August 26, 2015, on the right shows strong winds both in the Bering Strait and the North Atlantic.
Typhoons increase this danger. The Climate Reanalyzer forecast for August 27, 2015, below shows a typhoon in the Pacific Ocean close to the Arctic Ocean.
The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as discussed in the Climate Plan.
On August 21, 2015, sea surface temperatures near Svalbard were as high as 17°C (62.6°F), a 12°C (21.5°F) anomaly, at...
Posted by Sam Carana on Monday, August 24, 2015
Light On the Dark Side: Planned Parenthood and Ashley Madison
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In the last few weeks, an organization called the Center for Medical Progress posted videos of Planned Parenthood employees discussing cash transactions involving the body parts of aborted fetuses. And just last week, a hacker group calling itself the Impact Team posted personal information on 32 million users of Ashley Madison, a website that advertises itself as a matchmaker for those wishing to have extramarital affairs. In both of these cases, the hackers or investigators "went to the dark side" technologically, using spy technology or hacking abilities to penetrate secrets of the target organizations. What can we say about the use of technology in this way? Does the end justify the means? Or are we not permitted to do evil, even if good may come from it?
Though the technology is new, the moral dilemma posed by these cases is very old. Both St. Augustine (354 - 430 A. D.) and St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 -1274 A. D.) took up the question of whether good intentions can justify an evil act. In fact, Aquinas cited Augustine approvingly as he considered this question: ". . . Augustine says that there are some actions which neither a good end nor a good will can make good."
For those familiar with digital logic, we can express what Aquinas says about the matter in terms of an AND function of three inputs A, B, and C. All inputs have to be true in order for the output of the AND gate to be true. For Augustine and Aquinas, not only must the will (intention) of the actor be good. And it's not sufficient even if the outcome of the action (the end) is good. The act itself has to be good, or at least not on a list of intrinsically evil acts, for the overall action to be permissible.
What does the list of intrinsically evil acts look like? Well, most moral theorists include lying on the list. Right there, the anonymous investigator of Planned Parenthood who posed as a buyer for a fetal-tissue company ran afoul of the no-evil-acts principle. He wasn't telling the truth—there was no such company. And he was wired with audio and video recording equipment that took down every word spoken by the Planned Parenthood representatives, who wouldn't have been so forthcoming if they had known the guy they were talking with was a spy, basically.
How about the Impact Team, those Ashley Madison hackers? We're on softer ground here. About the worst moral transgression they committed was theft of the Ashley Madison records, though it is theft of a peculiarly digital kind, because Ashley Madison still has all the records they used to have. They're just exposed to public view now, for curious spouses to peruse in case they have had some suspicions about whether their partner has been straying, or trying to. As it turns out, there were a lot more wanna-be adulterers signed up than real ones. One of the embarrassing things the Impact Team revealed about the website was that about 85% of the site's customers were men, and it's likely that many of the female profiles on the site were fabricated. Add that to the fact that the site charged users $19 to allegedly remove all their personal data from the site, only they didn't, and Ashley Madison's business model looks to be coming apart at the seams. Which is probably just what the Impact Team hoped would happen.
Now, I happen to believe that the planet would be a better place if neither Planned Parenthood nor Ashley Madison existed as organizations, at least in their present forms. If the actions of hackers or investigative journalists move circumstances in the direction of ending or diminishing the influence of these outfits, I think that outcome would be a good thing. Does this mean I disagree with Augustine and Aquinas that a good end sometimes does justify intrinsically evil means? Not necessarily.
Just to show how complicated things can get, let's consider St. Thomas's views on war, specifically, killing in the context of war. He allowed as how there were sometimes "just wars" and in such cases, killing was justified in that context, even though murder was on that list of intrinsically evil acts.
The people at the Center for Medical Progress may view what Planned Parenthood does in its abortion clinics as a war on unborn children. They, along with virtually everyone else in the prolife community, reject violence as a means of stopping abortion. But nobody was physically injured by their investigations. Instead, the statements of Planned Parenthood personnel that were intended for a private audience have been exposed to the world—brought to the light, in other words. The same happened with Ashley Madison's client lists. Both organizations have issued strenuous condemnations of the people who exposed them, which is not surprising. It's just like Jesus said: "For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed."
There is a difference between deciding that you would do a thing yourself and observing the actions of someone else in a historical process. The radical abolitionist John Brown (1800-1859) killed numbers of slavery supporters and was captured as he tried to take over a Federal armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia. He was tried and executed for his crimes, but his actions brought attention to slavery in a way that moved the mysterious processes of history forward, and may have hastened the day when slavery was abolished throughout the entire U. S. The U. S. Civil War was not a good thing in itself, but the outcome of ending slavery was.
I would not personally go around hacking somebody's private customer lists or carrying spy cameras to get the goods on somebody engaged in nefarious dealings. But other people have already gone and done these things. The Impact Team and the Center for Medical Progress knew what they were getting into, and I hope they are prepared for the legal and moral repercussions of their actions. I'm not them, and I can't presume to say what natural or supernatural motives stirred them to their actions.
But I can say that the exposure of evil deeds, leaving aside the means by which they are exposed, is a good outcome. The vulnerability of sites like Ashley Madison to hacking is now known. The fact that Planned Parenthood exchanges fetal tissue for money in long-standing contracted relationships with outside organizations is also known. And while I might have advised the Impact Team and the Center for Medical Progress not to do what they did, they didn't ask me before they did it. And maybe that's a good thing, too.
Sources: My sources for information on the Ashley Madison hack included the Defense One military site (a lot of the users turned out to be military personnel) at http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2015/08/ashley-madison-hack-opm-government-military/119279/and Wired.com articles at http://www.wired.com/2015/08/happened-hackers-posted-stolen-ashley-madison-data/
and http://www.wired.com/2015/08/ashley-madison-hack-exposes-wait-lousy-business/. The latest Center for Medical Progress video as of this writing can be viewed at http://www.centerformedicalprogress.org. I also referred to St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica (First Part of the Second Part, Question 20, Article 2) from which the above quotation from St. Augustine is taken (Anton C. Pegis, Basic Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, Random House, 1945). I also referred to an article on the Planned Parenthood videos on Yahoo at https://www.yahoo.com/health/with-release-of-6th-undercover-video-evidence-of-126520215477.html. The quotation from Jesus is from the New Testament book of John, chapter 3, verse 20 (Revised Standard Version).
Fujifilm Reports Instant Film Camera Sales Growth
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Photoblographer and Polaroid user at Reddit noticed an interesting trend of instant film camera rise in Fujufilm IR Presentation dated by May 19, 2015:
Update: The recent Fujifilm quarterly earnings report from July 30, 2015 upholds the instant photo camera business forecast:
"The number of sales in volume of instant camera in 1Q was 1.03 million and the target volume for this fiscal year remains the same at 4.60 million"
Update: The recent Fujifilm quarterly earnings report from July 30, 2015 upholds the instant photo camera business forecast:
"The number of sales in volume of instant camera in 1Q was 1.03 million and the target volume for this fiscal year remains the same at 4.60 million"
Ocean Heat Invades Arctic Ocean
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NOAA analysis shows that, on land, it now is about 1°C (1.8°F) warmer than the 20th century average.
July 2015 was the warmest month ever recorded for the globe. The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for July was the all-time highest monthly temperature in the 1880-2015 record – it was 16.61°C (61.86°F), i.e. 0.81°C (1.46°F) above the 20th century average.
As the image below shows, the July data for sea surface temperature anomalies on the Northern Hemisphere contain a trendline pointing at a rise of 2°C (3.6°F) before the year 2030. In other words, if this trend continues, the sea surface will be 2°C (3.6°F) warmer in less than 15 years time from now.
Such a temperature rise would be a catastrophe, as there are huge amounts of methane contained in the form of hydrates and free gas in sediments under the Arctic Ocean seafloor. A relatively small temperature rise of part of these sediments could cause a huge abrupt methane eruption, which could in turn trigger further eruptions of methane.
As illustrated by the image below, high methane levels are already showing up over the Arctic.
Loss of Arctic sea ice could speed up such a development. The image on the right shows that, on August 20, 2015, Arctic sea ice extent was at a record low for the time of the year except for the years 2007, 2011 and 2012.
The situation today is even worse than one might conclude when looking at sea ice extent alone. Thick sea ice is virtually absent compared to the situation in the year 2012 around this time of year, as illustrated by the image below that compares sea ice thickness on August 20, 2012 (left) with August 20, 2015 (right).
The comparison below further illustrates this. The left panel shows how thick sea ice is anchored to the north-east tip of Greenland on July 7, 2015. The right panel shows how, on August 20, 2015, this ice has been fractured and shattered into pieces. All this ice looks set to soon flow down Fram Strait and melt away in ever warmer water.
The image below shows sea surface temperature anomalies on August 21, 2015.
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| [ click on image to enlarge ] |
July 2015 was the warmest month ever recorded for the globe. The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for July was the all-time highest monthly temperature in the 1880-2015 record – it was 16.61°C (61.86°F), i.e. 0.81°C (1.46°F) above the 20th century average.
Sea surfaces were very warm as well, in particular the North Pacific, which on August 22, 2015, was exactly 1°C (1.8°F) warmer than it was compared to the period from 1971 to 2000 (see Climate Reanalyzer image right).
The July globally-averaged sea surface temperature was the highest temperature for any month in the 1880-2015 record. In July 2015, the sea surface on the Northern Hemisphere was 0.87°C (1.57°F) warmer than it was in the 20th century, as illustrated by the NOAA graph below.
The July globally-averaged sea surface temperature was the highest temperature for any month in the 1880-2015 record. In July 2015, the sea surface on the Northern Hemisphere was 0.87°C (1.57°F) warmer than it was in the 20th century, as illustrated by the NOAA graph below.
As the image below shows, the July data for sea surface temperature anomalies on the Northern Hemisphere contain a trendline pointing at a rise of 2°C (3.6°F) before the year 2030. In other words, if this trend continues, the sea surface will be 2°C (3.6°F) warmer in less than 15 years time from now.
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| [ click on image to enlarge ] |
As illustrated by the image below, high methane levels are already showing up over the Arctic.
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| Methane levels as high as 2565 parts per billion were recorded on August 18, 2015 |
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| [ click on image to enlarge ] |
The situation today is even worse than one might conclude when looking at sea ice extent alone. Thick sea ice is virtually absent compared to the situation in the year 2012 around this time of year, as illustrated by the image below that compares sea ice thickness on August 20, 2012 (left) with August 20, 2015 (right).
The comparison below further illustrates this. The left panel shows how thick sea ice is anchored to the north-east tip of Greenland on July 7, 2015. The right panel shows how, on August 20, 2015, this ice has been fractured and shattered into pieces. All this ice looks set to soon flow down Fram Strait and melt away in ever warmer water.
The image below shows sea surface temperature anomalies on August 21, 2015.
On the image below, the green circle at the top of each globe indicates a location where sea surface temperature was 17°C (62.6°F) on August 21, 2015, an anomaly of 11.9°C (21.4°F). This is where warm water is entering the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic Ocean. At the same time, warm water is entering the Arctic ocean through the Bering Strait from the Pacific Ocean.
There still are a few weeks to go before sea ice can be expected to reach its minimum, at around half September 2015, while sea currents will continue to carry warmer water into the Arctic Ocean for months to come. More open water increases the chance that storms will develop that will push the last remnants of the sea ice out of the Arctic Ocean, as discussed in earlier posts such as this one, while storms can also mix warm surface waters all the way down to the seafloor, as discussed in this earlier post.
Typhoons increase this danger. The Climate Reanalyzer image below shows typhoons in the Pacific.
Typhoons developing in the Pacific Ocean are getting stronger as the oceans warm. One of the typhoons visible on above map, Typhoon Goni, has just claimed ten lives in the Philippines.
Stronger typhoons come with an increased chance that they will bring strong winds and warm air and water into the Arctic.
Typhoon Goni and the larger Typhoon Atsani are both moving north and look set to move into the direction of the Arctic Ocean, as illustrated by the forecast for the situation on August 26, 2015, on the right.
Atsani was the twelfth typhoon and sixth super typhoon of the year in the western North Pacific—numbers that meteorologists say put the season on a record-breaking track. The NASA image below gives an idea of the size of Typhoon Atsani.
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| [ click on image to enlarge ] |
Typhoons increase this danger. The Climate Reanalyzer image below shows typhoons in the Pacific.
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| [ click on image to enlarge ] |
Stronger typhoons come with an increased chance that they will bring strong winds and warm air and water into the Arctic.
Typhoon Goni and the larger Typhoon Atsani are both moving north and look set to move into the direction of the Arctic Ocean, as illustrated by the forecast for the situation on August 26, 2015, on the right.
Atsani was the twelfth typhoon and sixth super typhoon of the year in the western North Pacific—numbers that meteorologists say put the season on a record-breaking track. The NASA image below gives an idea of the size of Typhoon Atsani.
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| [ Typhoon Atsani - NASA image ] |
The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as discussed in the Climate Plan.
July data for sea surface temperature anomalies on the Northern Hemisphere contain a trendline pointing at a rise of 2°C...
Posted by Sam Carana on Friday, August 21, 2015
IR Laboratories - New Home for Noble Peak Technology
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As EF mentioned in comments to Stratio post, IR Laboratories acquired the assets of NoblePeak Vision Corp, the developer of TriWave Ge-enhanced CMOS SWIR FPA's, in 2010.
From the company's whitepaper:
"NoblePeak Vision has solved the problem of growing thick, pure defect free germanium on silicon with its TriWave® technology. Figure 2 shows schematically our growth technique which traps dislocations by exploiting their characteristic diagonal propagation. A single crystal seed emerges from the narrow aperture and serves as a crystalline template for a large defect-free island. The island is formed after silicon transistor formation. The conventional back-end of the CMOS process then proceeds as usual, with alternating layers of dielectric and metal used to interconnect transistors and to connect the germanium photodiode to the circuitry."
"Figure 3 shows a scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of one such island integrated into a 180 nm CMOS process with three levels of metal and a reflow micro lens used to increase fill factor. TriWave detectors of size from 2 um to 5.6 um and imaging arrays with pixels of size 7 um and 10 um have been fabricated in this technology."
"Figure 5 shows the measured spectral response compared to theoretical predictions for bulk germanium at 220K. The cut off is at longer wavelength than predicted, due to grown-in strain."
VGA Tri-Wave sensor:
From the company's whitepaper:
"NoblePeak Vision has solved the problem of growing thick, pure defect free germanium on silicon with its TriWave® technology. Figure 2 shows schematically our growth technique which traps dislocations by exploiting their characteristic diagonal propagation. A single crystal seed emerges from the narrow aperture and serves as a crystalline template for a large defect-free island. The island is formed after silicon transistor formation. The conventional back-end of the CMOS process then proceeds as usual, with alternating layers of dielectric and metal used to interconnect transistors and to connect the germanium photodiode to the circuitry."
"Figure 3 shows a scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of one such island integrated into a 180 nm CMOS process with three levels of metal and a reflow micro lens used to increase fill factor. TriWave detectors of size from 2 um to 5.6 um and imaging arrays with pixels of size 7 um and 10 um have been fabricated in this technology."
"Figure 5 shows the measured spectral response compared to theoretical predictions for bulk germanium at 220K. The cut off is at longer wavelength than predicted, due to grown-in strain."
VGA Tri-Wave sensor:
- Package Cu W base, Covar lid, 26 pin, AR Sapphire window
- 21mm x 21mm x 13.5mm
- Hermetically sealed, Xenon backfilled
- 4-stage TEC provides cooling to -80 C in ambient temperatures up to +40C
