Contract chip manufacturer DB Hitek said on Tuesday that it has secured global shutter and single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) technologies for the production of high-end image sensors.
The South Korean foundry said it will expand into industrial machine vision, autonomous driving, augmented reality, and other new areas with the technologies.
A global shutter is an electronic shutter that reads the entire sensor in one instant.
This allows it to capture a subject without distortion. They are in high demand in machine vision applications for smart factories. More advanced vehicles, drones, and robots also use them.
DB Hitek said it applied a light shield and light guide for its global shutter, reaching an efficiency of 99.997%. The shutter can also achieve a 2.8-micrometer pixel size.
SPAD is an ultra-sensitive 3D image sensor that can detect photon-level light.
Its accuracy and range make it in high demand for lidars used in self-driving cars and other advanced applications.
DB Hitek said it was developing image sensors using this technology with customers in the US, Japan, and China.
