Power and sensor technology maker onsemi announced the Hyperlux LP Image Sensor family, suited primarily for industrial and commercial cameras used in devices like smart doorbells, security cameras, XR headsets, machine vision and videoconferencing.
They are designed to extend battery life by up to 40%, enabled in part with a low-power mode that works at a fraction of the full performance mode. Once a sensor detects movement in a “wake on motion” feature, it moves from low to higher performance at a quick rate, faster than the time taken to snap a photo, the company said.
They are also designed to deliver more than one region of interest for a context view of a scene with reduced bandwidth. This approach keeps the processor from working full time and using power. These low power approaches mean onsemi has eliminated the need for heat sinks to reduce the overall cost.
The family is comprised of three 1.4 um pixel sensors: 5-megapixel, 8-megapixel and 20-megapixel, with the smaller nearing the size of a grain of rice. With low power consumption, onsemi said the products are useful for cameras set in locations difficult to access.
Ganesh Narayanaswamy, head of product line and business management at onsemi, told reporters that the “markets are growing nicely” for image sensors, as image sensing products are growing in usage, for instance, with facial recognition by the TSA coming to 400 airports.
The company works with Nvidia, Qualcomm, NXP, Intel and others who incorporate onsemi sensors into SoCs, he said.
Owl Labs was cited as an early customer of Hyperlux LP for use in high-quality videoconferencing systems. “The superior optical performance, innovative features and extremely low power consumption of the Hyperlux LP image sensors enable us to deliver a completely immesive virtual meeting experience in highly intelligent and optimized videoconferencing systems,” said Ashish Thanawala, senior director of systems engineering at Owl Labs in a statement.
The Hyperlux sensors are shipping in the current fourth quarter. Pricing was not announced.