Smallest digicam is smaller than a grain of rice
An image sensor, designated NanEye, is smaller than a grain of rice, lighter than a postage stamp but more powerful than any previous development of its kind has been developed by ams OSRAM. AT&S developed the printed circuit board for the sensor, while the sensor itself was built be high-performance sensor supplier, ams OSRAM.
With a size of 1 mm² and a weight of about 1 gram, the image sensor is so small that it can not only be installed in smartphones, VR cameras, and other wearables but can also be integrated into medical applications such as endoscopes.
Miniaturization is becoming increasingly important in microelectronics. High-end applications must become smaller and smaller, and at the same time, it is a matter of having more and more space available for additional or more powerful components and new features to increase the functionality of the respective applications. Especially in the field of medical technology, miniaturization takes on another important component — the smaller the devices used for diagnosis or treatment, the more comfortable it is for the patient.
“The image sensor not only creates sharp images due to its 100,000-pixel resolution, but it also has low power consumption thanks to our smart connection architecture,” says Markus Maier, Global Account Manager at AT&S.
The digicam sensor, which provides digital video output, enables all kinds of visual sensing for mobile applications.
One of the first products to integrate the AT&S technology is NanEye, one of the smallest digital cameras on the market. NanEye has a wide range of applications, such as eye-tracking in VR goggles, but can also be used in the medical field. The AT&S technology is integrated, for example, in a camera head used for endoscopic examinations.
For AT&S, this product is very special — firstly, the AT&S hardware design team from AISS (Advanced Interconnect Solution Services) created the layout. Second, the interconnect design was realized using ECP (Embedded Component Packaging) technology. ECP enables both active and passive components to be integrated into laminate-based substrates, i.e., high-tech printed circuit boards, in a minimum of space.
“Instead of placing the components on the PCB, they are integrated into the PCB. They ‘disappear’ inside the PCB,” Maier says.
Embedded Component Packaging (ECP®) is made possible by a special manufacturing process. After the respective components have been integrated into a resin layer in special manufacturing steps, they are connected by copper-filled, laser-drilled microvias. This eliminates the need for solder joints for the embedded component, while at the same time enabling finer designs on the outer layer and providing the components with the best possible protection against external influences. With the innovative “Embedded Component Packaging” technology (ECP®), more components can be integrated into the PCB while the size of the end device remains the same. On the one hand, this increases functionality and, alternatively, the circuit board can be shrunk while maintaining the same range of functions, which in turn enables more compact end devices.
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