Sony Corporation has announced the IMX418 CMOS image sensor aimed at sensing applications. It comes equipped with a global shutter function and comes with an interface capable of multiple sensor connections on a single Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) input port.
This is the world-first made possible by Sony’s original data transmission technology as this interface enables data transmission that supports the MIPI standard. Sony says that it expects this product to find application in a variety of products that use multiple image sensors including head-mounted displays (HMD), drones, autonomous robots, and other products that perform simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) and obstacle detection based on information obtained with image sensors.
Sony’s new IMX418 sensor is equipped with an interface capable of connecting multiple sensors to the same wiring and transferring the image data that was simultaneously captured and recorded on multiple sensors in sequence to a single AP MIPI input port. This makes it possible not only to reduce wiring but also to connect more image sensors than the number of available MIPI input ports.
In terms of the method for transferring recorded image data from each sensor to the AP, it is possible to select either frame-by-frame or line-by-line, depending on how the data is to be processed. The new product builds on the advantages of Sony’s CMOS image sensor equipped with a global shutter function without focal plane distortion, which has been used mainly in the industrial device market.
It employs an angle of view with a 1:1 aspect ratio, which minimizes image information loss due to device tilt. It comes with Effective pixels of 1016 (H) × 1016 (V) 1.0 megapixels, maximum frame rate of 120fps, supported image format include Black and white RAW (10 bit/8 bit). The company is sampling the shipment of the new sensor and cost of which is 1500 Japense yen (US$ 13.32 / Rs. 975 approx.) for the chip and (US$17.76 or Rs. 1,300 approx.) for the chip-sized package.