November 2015 ~ engineering information technology

Sharp Imager Sales Growth Slows

online engineering degree/engineering degree online/online engineering courses/engineering technology online/engineering courses online/engineering technician degree online/online engineering technology/electronic engineering online

Sharp has presented its quarterly results about a month ago. It appears that the company's imager sales have peaked about half a year ago and slowly go down now:

Privacy and Backscatter X-Ray Technology

The New York City Police Department owns an unknown number of high-tech vans that allow their operators to play Superman—at least with regard to his X-ray vision abilities. An online article in The Atlanticlast month describes how NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton indirectly admitted his organization was using X-ray vans when he refused to discuss the matter at a press conference, citing security concerns. Superman was a fictional character whose strictly limited flaws were in service of a plot that always ended in the triumph of the unquestionably good over the irrevocably bad. But real life isn't so simple. And there are real concerns about the way the NYPD may be using this technology.

First, how does it work? Offhand, it sounds highly irresponsible for somebody to just shoot X-rays at random passersby. X-rays are a form of what is called ionizing radiation, meaning that they have enough energy to knock electrons out of atoms to make ions. Such ions can wreak havoc in the DNA of a biological target, for instance, and lead to cancer and other problems. That is why medical X-ray systems are highly regulated and only properly trained operators are allowed to use them.

But there is apparently a sort of escape clause for non-medical equipment that uses X-rays. If it meets a certain technical standard that limits the amount of exposure someone would get from a typical spying operation that lasts a few seconds, then the FDA is not involved and the rules change. According to numerous sources, the type of X-ray machinery used by the NYPD uses so-called "backscatter" X-ray technology that falls into the low-dose category.

It's really rather clever. Conventional X-ray machines use a transmission approach, sending X-rays through the item to be examined and recording what comes out on the other side. Your dentist uses this type of machine, and the image of your teeth shows up because bone is denser than air or soft tissue and absorbs and scatters more X-rays. But obviously, for transmission X-rays to work, the rays have to be strong enough to get all the way through the item being examined.

Backscatter X-rays work differently. Instead of producing a strong beam that illuminates the whole target at once and goes through it, a scanning type of backscatter unit sends a "flying spot" of X-rays sweeping across the target, which could be a person inside his or her clothes, or even a car. These X-rays don't have to penetrate the target. Instead, all they have to do is cause a thing called Compton scattering, which is basically what happens when an X-ray encounters an electron and is generous enough to share some of its energy. The electron takes off with some of the energy and a new X-ray photon appears carrying the energy that's left.

It is these new lower-energy X-rays that are detected by the backscatter machine, which consequently does not need to use X-rays that are as energetic as those used by conventional transmission machines. That and the fact that any one point on the target is exposed to X-rays for only a small fraction of the total time of exposure, means that the X-ray dose of a backscatter unit is much smaller than, say, what you'd get from a medical chest X-ray. Numerous sources confirm that the dose is so small from a surveillance backscatter X-ray device, that you would get something similar by just standing on a street corner for an hour or so and exposing yourself to background radiation. This comes from sources like cosmic rays and the potassium in construction materials, and everybody gets that every day, twenty-four hours a day. So despite some concerns on the part of investigative journalists that there are health hazards from backscatter X-ray technology, as long as the systems are working properly and used properly there are much more important things to worry about.

To my mind, the greater concern about these systems is privacy. You don't think that research directors of government agencies would go in for public cheesecake photos of themselves, but the Wikipedia article on backscatter X-rays shows such an image of Susan Hallowell, director of the U. S. Transportation Security Administration's research lab. It is, er, very clear that the image is that of a woman. We can all be glad that she wasn't a man.

At this point, we should take a look at the U. S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which is short enough to quote in full here: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Updating its 1792-era language to modern terms, it means that no government official can snoop on you unless they swear or affirm that they have a good reason to do so, and the officials can say exactly where they're going to look and what they're going to look for.

I'm not a lawyer, and since the Fourth Amendment was passed it has accumulated various qualifications and exceptions, like a ship picks up barnacles. But the principle that the writers of that amendment had in mind is still clear. A person's body, house, papers (which was the only way to record data back then), and "effects" (as in personal effects—what a ten-year-old would call "my stuff") are inviolable against government attempts to mess with them—taking them, looking at them, or anything along those lines. The only cause strong enough to justify such violation is when the government has a good case to show that something is amiss and can describe what they want to look for and where. This clearly rules out fishing expeditions, in which an official simply snoops at will and starts investigating a crime when the snooping itself provides evidence.

Right now, the NYPD is in effect saying "Trust us, we're using this X-ray van the right way." But if citizens can't even know how many vans there are, let alone how they're being used, that is asking for a heck of a lot of trust.

Sources: The Atlantic's article "The NYPD Is Using Mobile X-Ray Vans to Spy on Unknown Targets" appeared on Oct. 19, 2015 at http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/the-nypd-is-using-mobile-x-rays-to-spy-on-unknown-targets/411181/. I also consulted the websites of firms that make such devices, including American Science and Engineering at www.as-e.comand the Tek84 Engineering Group at www.tek84.com. I thank my nephew Matt, a graduate student in criminal justice, for bringing this matter up at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

Photoneo Wins Slovakia StartUpAwards

Photoneo reports that it is the winner of StartupAwards.sk for 2015 in Science category.

In a separate news, the company CEO Jan Zizka was selected to the group of 100 leaders of change in NEWEUROPE100 initiative. This list showcases people that will be the drivers of change in Central and Eastern Europe in the near future.

CMOSIS Pre-Announces Fast & Large 2MP Sensor

Next week, CMOSIS will introduce the CSI2100 2MP CMOS sensor. Its features include a 1440 x 1440 pixel array with 12 µm B&W GS pixels and a 500 fps frame rate in 10-bit mode. The sensor boasts a a full well capacity of 2 Me-/pixel and is optimized to detect small signal variations in bright images captured at high-speed. This makes it suitable for medical, scientific and industrial applications. The CSI2100 evaluation kit was co-developed with Pleora Technologies.

UMC CIS MPW

Europractice publishes its 2016 MPW prices and schedules. It looks like that other than TowerJazz, UMC becomes one of the biggest CIS MPW providers, including 110nm CIS process:

5 - block size 5mm x 5mm, 6 - block size 4mm x 4mm
Discouted prices are available only to Europractice members and only for educational or publicly
funded research use

Yole Report on IR Image Sensors

Yole Developpement "Infrared Detector Technology & Market Trends (2015 edition)" report estimates the total IR detector market at 247M units in 2014 and a global revenue of US$ 209M. Yole’s analysts highlight the rapid growth of +14% between 2015 and 2020 (in units). Five applications among the nine applications will drive the IR detector market revenue growth: spot thermometry in mobiles devices, motion detection, smart building, HVAC and other medium array applications and people counting. “The next growth opportunities will be outside traditional markets, in smart buildings and mobile devices,” comments Yann de Charentenay, Senior, Technology & Market Analyst at Yole.

Interview with Martin Wäny

Martin Wäny, the founder and CEO of Awaiba, now CMOSIS, gives an interview on endoscopic imaging to News Medical site. Few interesting quotes:

"The miniaturization, and in particular the usage of semiconductor miniaturization technologies, allows us to build smaller, in volume and lower priced endoscopic cameras. This enables the proliferation of disposable endoscopes for a wide range of applications.

Is it possible to introduce 3D visualization using the mini optical modules?

Yes, for that purpose CMOSIS already offers endoscopic stereo camera modules. Multiple camera modules can provide 3D image information as needed for dental applications, or for the absolute measurement of features in laparoscopy or gastroenterology."

CMOSIS-Awaiba Naneye Camera

XIMEA on IMEC Multispectral Camera

German camera maker XIMEA publishes a Vimeo talk about its hyperspectral cameras based on IMEC sensors:

Noiseless Frame Summation in CMOS Sensors

As promised in comments to the earlier post on sub-electron pixel noise, here is the presentation on the noiseless frame summation in the regular charge-transfer pixel that can allow DR expansion while maintaining the usual 4T pixel noise level:

The above slides complete the description of the noiseless frame summation general idea. There are few practical issues that need to be addressed though:

Eric Fossum Elected OSA Fellow

The Optical Society of America announces that Eric Fossum has been elected as OSA Fellow, among other 77 OSA members. "Fellows of The Optical Society are elected based on their significant contributions to the advancement of optics and photonics and are selected based on several factors, including specific scientific, engineering, and technological contributions, a record of significant publications or patents related to optics, technical or industry leadership in the field as well as service to OSA and the global optics community."

Rambus David Stork Elected OSA Life Fellow

Rambus Fellow David Stork was recently elected “Life Fellow” by the Optical Society of America (OSA). Stork is a member of Rambus imaging team and has many image sensor related papers and patents.

“I deeply enjoy the task of identifying technical problems or opportunities, solving hard theoretical problems and translating those results into practical devices and real-world services that make a difference in the world,” he told Rambus Press. “Specific examples include pondering interdisciplinary problems and the intersections of apparently disparate disciplines, e.g. optics and computing, hardware and software, computer vision and art, speech recognition and computer vision, etc.”

Qualcomm on Low Light Imaging

Qualcomm promotes its low light image processing in this Youtube video:

Arctic Ocean Shows New Record Low Sea Ice

by Albert Kallio

Both the sea ice thickness and sea ice area have fallen to new record lows for this time of the year (22.11.2015), even surpassing all of the worst previous years.

From Naval Research Laboratory image - view animation

Immense thrust of fast moving sea ice is pushing through at the full width of the Fram Strait between Norway and Greenland. This amounts to huge transport of latent coldness out of the Arctic Ocean to North Atlantic, while the constantly forming new sea ice (as temperatures are below 0°C) is generating heat to keep the surface air temperatures higher across the Arctic Ocean. Thus, heat is constantly being added to the Arctic Ocean while heat is taken away from the North Atlantic Ocean.

The normal sea ice area for this time of year is 9,625,000 km², whereas the sea ice covers currently just 8,415,890 km^2,, which makes that 1,209,120 km² sea ice is missing from the normal (22.11) sea ice area.

The combination image below shows the jet stream (November 23, 2015, left panel) and surface wind (November 24, 2015, right panel).

Jet stream is wavy and strong, showing speeds as high as 219 mph or 352 km/h (at location marked by the green circle). Right panel shows cyclonic winds between Norway and Greenland speeding up movement of sea ice into the North Atlantic.

Forecasts indicate that conditions could continue. The 5-day forecast on the right shows strong winds in the North Atlantic. Note also the cyclonic winds outside the Bering Strait.

Temperatures over the Arctic are forecast to remain much higher than they used to be, with anomalies at the far end of the scale over a large part of the Arctic Ocean showing up on the 5-day temperature anomaly forecast below.

[ further updates will follow ]

0.27e− rms Read Noise Sensor Paper

IEEE Electron Device Letters publishes an open-access paper "A 0.27e− rms Read Noise 220-μV/e− Conversion Gain Reset-Gate-Less CMOS Image Sensor With 0.11-μm CIS Process" by Min-Woong Seo, Shoji Kawahito, Keiichiro Kagawa, and Keita Yasutomi. "To achieve a high pixel conversion gain without fine or special processes, the proposed pixel has two unique structures: 1) coupling capacitance between the transfer gate and floating diffusion (FD) and 2) coupling capacitance between the reset gate and FD, for removing parasitic capacitances around the FD node:"

Proposed HCG pixel. (a) Cross-section of the proposed pixel for
reducing the parasitic capacitance of floating diffusion. (b) Potential
diagram as a function of the voltage level of VRTH.

Photoelectron-counting histrograms with a theoretical Poisson
distribution of the developed CMOS imager (@ 100,000 points,
230 LSB/e− using internal ADC). (a) Signal level λ = 2.05.
(b) Signal level λ = 4.0.

This is close to 0.22e- rms noise reported in an earlier paper.

Thanks to EF for the link!

Image Sensors at ISSCC 2016

ISSCC 2016 Advance program has many innovative image sensor related papers, with Panasonic leading the way with its organic imagers:

6.1 An Over 120dB Simultaneous-Capture Wide-Dynamic-Range 1.6e- Ultra-Low-Reset-Noise Organic-Photoconductive-Film CMOS Image Sensor
K. Nishimura, Y. Sato, J. Hirase, R. Sakaida, M. Yanagida, T. Tamaki, M. Takase, H. Kanehara, M. Murakami, Y. Inoue,
Panasonic, Moriguchi, Japan

6.2 210ke- Saturation Signal 3µm-Pixel Variable-Sensitivity Global-Shutter Organic Photoconductive Image Sensor for Motion Capture
S. Shishido, Y. Miyake, Y. Sato, T. Tamaki, N. Shimasaki, Y. Sato, M. Murakami, Y. Inoue,
Panasonic, Moriguchi, Japan

6.3 105×65mm2 391Mpixel CMOS Image Sensor with >78dB Dynamic Range for Airborne Mapping Applications
J. Bogaerts, R. Lafaille, M. Borremans, J. Guo, B. Ceulemans, G. Meynants, N. Sarhangnejad, G. Arsinte, V. Statescu, S. van der Groen
CMOSIS NV, Antwerp, Belgium

6.4 An APS-H-Size 250Mpixel CMOS Image Sensor Using Column Single-Slope ADCs with Dual-Gain Amplifiers
H. Totsuka, T. Tsuboi, T. Muto, D. Yoshida, Y. Matsuno, M. Ohmura, H. Takahashi, K. Sakurai, T. Ichikawa, H. Yuzurihara, S. Inoue
Canon, Kawasaki, Japan

6.5 A 64×64-Pixel Digital Silicon Photomultiplier Direct ToF Sensor with 100MPhotons/s/pixel Background Rejection and Imaging/Altimeter Mode with 0.14% Precision up to 6km for Spacecraft Navigation and Landing
M. Perenzoni, D. Perenzoni, D. Stoppa
Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy

6.6 A 1280×720 Single-Photon-Detecting Image Sensor with 100dB Dynamic Range Using a Sensitivity-Boosting Technique
M. Mori, Y. Sakata, M. Usuda, S. Yamahira, S. Kasuga, Y. Hirose, Y. Kato, T. Tanaka
Panasonic, Nagaokakyo, Japan

6.7 A 1.2e- Temporal Noise 3D-Stacked CMOS Image Sensor with Comparator-Based Multiple-Sampling PGA
K. Shiraishi, Y. Shinozuka, T. Yamashita, K. Sugiura, N. Watanabe, R. Okamoto, T. Ashitani, M. Furuta, T. Itakura,
Toshiba, Kawasaki, Japan

6.8 A 1.5V 33Mpixel 3D-Stacked CMOS Image Sensor with Negative Substrate Bias
C. C-M. Liu, M. M. Mhala, C-H. Chang, H. Tu, P-S. Chou, C. Chao, F-L. Hsueh
TSMC, Hsinchu, Taiwan

6.9 A 1.1µm 33Mpixel 240fps 3D-Stacked CMOS Image Sensor with 3-Stage Cyclic-Based Analog-to-Digital Converters
T. Arai, T. Yasue, K. Kitamura, H. Shimamoto, T. Kosugi, S. Jun, S. Aoyama, M-C. Hsu, Y. Yamashita, H. Sumi, S. Kawahito
NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories, Tokyo, Japan
Brookman Technology, Hamamatsu, Japan
TSMC, Hsinchu, Taiwan
Shizuoka University, Hamamatsu, Japan

F5 forum on Advanced IC Design for Ultra-Low-Noise Sensing has a couple of image sensor presentations:

NOISE: You Love It or You Hate It
Albert Theuwissen
Harvest Imaging, Belgium & Delft University of Technology, Delft,The Netherlands

Low-Noise Image Sensors
Shoji Kawahito
Shizuoka University, Hamamatsu, Japan

Noise in Single-Photon-Counting Image Sensors
Neale A.W. Dutton
STMicroelectronics, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

VW's In A Fix With Their Fix

Back in September, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accused Volkswagen of cheating with regard to emissions controls of many of its cars that use diesel engines. VW admitted as much, its CEO resigned, and now the firm faces the problem of fixing all the cars that violate emissions standards. One way or another, some 11 million cars worldwide are implicated, with about half a million in the U. S. alone. How did VW get into this fix, and how are they going to dig themselves out?

As new information has emerged on exactly how the cheating was done, it's pretty easy to tell that this was no single-line software tweak by a lone rogue engineer. According to a Nov. 4 BBC report, someone (probably several someones) designed software to detect when the car was on a test stand designed for EPA checks. This typically involves running the car while it is on a dynamometer, which uses rollers underneath the wheels to load the engine to simulate actual road conditions. But in order for the stationary test equipment to be connected to the vehicle, the car is usually sitting still in a laboratory somewhere during the test. I'm not saying that I know how the software guys did it, but if I were faced with the problem of how to figure out if a test-stand situation like this was going on, I'd look at the built-in accelerometers that every airbag-equipped car has. If nobody's at the steering wheel and the car isn't going anyplace even if it's in "drive" and the engine's running, chances are it's on a test stand.

However they did it, when an emission-test situation was detected the car switched into a mode that made it pass the emissions test. But the price was severely crippled power and lowered engine performance, which however would not typically show up on an emissions test—after all, nobody's actually driving it to tell. Once the test was over, the software readjusted the engine settings to produce normal power and performance—and as much as forty times more nitrous oxides (NOx) than the EPA allows. But hey—it passed the test. That's all that counts, right?

This mode of cheating is why fixing the problem with many diesel models, especially older ones, is not going to be some simple reload-new-software exercise. If you've gone on a road trip recently and looked around in a truck-stop convenience store, you may have noticed piles of plastic bottles full of something called "diesel exhaust fluid." Turns out that this stuff is now needed for many tractor-trailer diesel engines in order to meet the EPA's requirements for NOx emissions. There's machinery on board the truck that squirts the fluid—which contains urea—into the exhaust, and the urea solution vaporizes to form ammonia and carbon dioxide. The ammonia, in the presence of a catalyst in a thing called a selective catalytic reduction system (SCR), combines with the nasty NOx molecules to form nitrogen and water, which finally leave the exhaust pipe and rejoin Mother Nature, leaving her nearly as pristine as she was before the truck came by.

It's one thing for truck engineers to see the regulations coming down the pike, and take time to redesign the power plant so as to accommodate another anti-pollution system which requires valves, heaters to keep the urea solution from freezing, pipes, level-monitoring systems, and all the other stuff needed to do the NOx-killing job. It's quite another thing for VW to be under the gun to retrofit small diesel passenger cars that are maybe four or five years old, with a kit of SCR stuff they were not designed to have. You'll need someplace to stick the SCR unit in the exhaust line, a way to get a pipe from the SCR to the urea tank, a place to put the urea tank, control lines, etc. Engineers estimate the cost per vehicle could range up to $1000 or more. With some cars, it may be cheaper for VW simply to buy them back from the owners and send them to the scrapyard. Software-only fixes may be possible for some diesel models, but it looks like millions of cars worldwide will need expensive hardware installations to meet current emissions requirements.

VW says its internal investigation into how all this happened is still continuing. For their sake, I hope they wind it up pretty soon, at least well enough to publish a timeline with names and actions. But even without such information, it's obvious by now that deception with regard to emissions controls was an established policy. Maybe the conspiracy—that's not too strong a term at this point—was concealed from upper management, and that's one of the things we need to know. But even if it was, it's clear that there was a group of engineers inside VW who deliberately set out to cheat the system of pollution controls. And they got away with it for several years.

It's not often that such a clear-cut case of wrongdoing by engineers makes the headlines. Far more often, engineers will face a dilemma in which either choice has advantages and disadvantages, both morally and otherwise. And sometimes engineers make the wrong choice, basing their decisions on incomplete information. But in most engineering situations, information is always incomplete. There's always more you'd like to know, but at some point the project must go on, choices must be made, and sometimes they turn out to be wrong ones.

But the VW emissions case is different. Deception was intended from the start. I don't know what internal company dynamics brought pressure to bear on engineers to the extent that developing a software evasion of emissions controls seemed like a good idea, but clearly something was wrong with the way ethical principles were stated and handed down.

Sometimes, companies who do bad things are unrepentant and fight tooth and nail despite being in the wrong. In such cases, large government fines are sometimes the only thing that will make an impression. But in VW's case, its CEO resigned, sales are dropping, and there are news stories with graphics that show the famed chrome VW emblem breaking apart. It's starting to look like the market and news media will do more punishing than the EPA is likely to do. Whether that's fair or not is almost beside the point. To survive, VW will have to own up fully, fix the mess it made to the best of its ability, and be a different company from the inside out—from now on.

Sources: An Associated Press article on the types of fixes needed by VW was published in numerous outlets, including the U. S. News and World Report website on Nov. 19 at http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2015/11/19/vw-has-only-a-few-costly-options-to-fix-polluting-diesels. Information on the details of how the cheating software worked was carried by the BBC on Nov. 4 at http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772. I also referred to the Wikipedia article on diesel exhaust fluid. I last blogged on the VW emissions scandal on Sept. 21, 2015.

Rapid Transition to a Clean World

100% clean and renewable wind, water, and solar (WWS)

all-sector energy roadmaps for 139 countries of the world

[ click on image to enlarge ]

Above image is from a new study by Jacobson et al. [draft]. This excellent study shows that it is technically and economically feasible to shift to clean energy facilities between now and 2050. It will create net jobs worldwide. It will avoid millions of air-pollution mortalities and avoid trillions of dollars in pollution and global warming damage. It will stabilize energy prices and reduce energy poverty. It will make countries energy independent and reduce international conflict over energy. It will reduce risks of large-scale system disruptions by significantly decentralizing power production.

Mark Jacobson: A 100 percent Renewable Economy

Given that there are so many benefits and there are no technical and economic barriers to complete the shift by the year 2050, why not make an even faster transition?

Sam Carana suggests that feebates, especially when implemented locally, can best facilitate the necessary shift. Moreover, when energy feebates are implemented jointly with feebates in further areas, greenhouse gas emissions could be cut by 80% by 2020, while soils, atmosphere and oceans could be restored to their pre-industrial status over the course of the century.

To achieve this, Sam Carana recommends implementing two types of feebates, i.e. energy feebates and further feebates such as fees on sales of livestock products while using the revenues to fund rebates on soil supplements containing biochar.

Sam Carana adds that further lines of action will be needed to prevent Earth from overheating, warning that comprehensive and effective action is needed as described in the Climate Plan.

The image below shows that a shift to 100% clean (WWS) energy by 2050 (80% by 2030) could reduce CO2 to ~350 ppmv by 2100.

[ from Jacobson et al. 2015 ]

Energy feebates are the most effective way to speed up the shift to clean energy. Further feebates could make additional cuts in greenhouse gases emissions, while also removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and oceans, allowing us to aim for bringing down carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to 280 ppmv by the year 2100.

Links

- How Renewable Energy Could Make Climate Treaties Moot

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-renewable-energy-could-make-climate-treaties-moot/

- 100% Wind, Water, and Solar (WWS) All-Sector Energy Roadmaps for Countries and States

http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/WWS-50-USState-plans.html

- The Solutions Project - 100% Renewable Energy
thesolutionsproject.org

- Climate Plan

http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

A new study by Jacobson et al. shows that it is technically and economically feasible to shift to clean energy...
Posted by Sam Carana on Saturday, November 21, 2015

Caeleste Presents UV-B-W Imager

Caeleste publishes its presentation "UV-White-Yellow Bayer-like pattern imager" by P.Gao, B.Dierickx, Q.Yao, J.Zhu, P.Coppejans, R.Zhang, G.Cai, B.Luyssaert, B.Spinnewyn, A.Kalgi, and D.Van Aken at CNES Image sensor workshop held on Nov. 19, 2015, Toulouse, France. The company proposes to implement the color separation with no usual organic filters on top: