Sony announces industry's highest resolution 7.42 megapixel stacked CMOS image sensor

As for Sony's IMX324 sensor, it is the first time in the industry where a stacked configuration has been employed in an automotive grade sensor.

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Sony Corporation has just announced the release of IMX324, a new 1/1.7-type stacked CMOS image sensor equipped with the industry's highest resolution 7.42 effective megapixel RCCC filter for forward-sensing cameras in advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). Sony will begin shipping samples in November 2017.

 
Sony announces industry's highest resolution stacked CMOS sensor

Sony claims that this new image sensor is capable of approximately three times the horizontal resolution of conventional products, which enables high-definition image capture of distant road signs approximately 160 meters ahead of the camera.

 

Furthermore, the sensor is equipped with a pixel binning mode for further raising the sensitivity in low-light environments, achieving the high sensitivity of 2666 mV. The pixel binning mode on this sensor adds data from a total of four pixels and processes it as a single pixel to raise the sensitivity when reading image data. It also makes it possible to capture images of pedestrians and obstacles even in dark night-time situations that are equivalent to the brightness of moonlight.

"Even in environments with uneven, mixed levels of brightness, due to headlights and streetlights when driving at night, the sensor is equipped with a function that alternately captures dark sections at high-sensitivity settings and bright sections at high resolution, enabling high-precision image recognition when combined with the signal processing of the latter stage," the company said in its media release.

This is the first time in the industry where a stacked configuration has been employed in an automotive grade sensor. This arranges the pixel array and signals processing circuit in layers to allow for a compact size and low power consumption while still delivering high resolution.

This image sensor is expected to be compatible with "EyeQ 4" and "EyeQ 5" image processors currently being developed by Mobileye, an Intel Company headquartered in Israel, for use in ADAS and autonomous vehicle technology.

This sensor is set to meet the requirements of the AEC-Q100 Grade 2 reliability testing standards for automotive electronic components by June 2018. Sony has also introduced a development process compliant with ISO 26262 automobile functional safety standards, to ensure design quality that satisfies the functional safety requirements for an automotive product.

The new sensors also support functional safety requirement level ASIL B(D) for failure detection, notification, and control. Moreover, the new sensor comes with a security feature that protects the output image from being altered, which is the industry's first application of such a function in an image sensor for automotive cameras.

Sony announces industry's highest resolution stacked CMOS sensor
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