Newsight Imaging Release An affordable CMOS Image Sensor NSI9000 Providing Advanced Features for Depth Sensing and LiDAR Applications

Newsight Imaging – a leading semiconductor innovator developing machine vision sensors, spectral vision chips, and systems – announced today the upcoming release of the NSI9000 one-chip (non-stacked) CMOS image sensor solution for depth imaging. The new chip is equipped with 491,520 depth 5×5 micron pixels (1024×480) (almost 5X more than its closest competitor), a global shutter (with up to 132 fps on full resolution), and an estimated depth accuracy of less than 1% of the distance. The sensor is designed for an optimal distance of 0-200 meters. The new chip offers capabilities at a competitive price to significant growth markets for LiDAR systems, automotive ADAS, Metaverse AR/VR applications, Industry 4.0, and smart city/IoT, including smart traffic 3D vision systems.

The sensor is a result of five years of collaborative innovation by Newsight and its partners such as Fraunhofer and Tower-Jazz. The product offers unique features, including:

Newsight's patented enhanced Time-Of-Flight (eTOF) technology is well demonstrated on the currently available NSI1000 sensor chip. This technology enables maximal flexibility using multi-sets of configurations, in-pixel accumulation, and a novel depth calculating method that does not require heavy calculations and expensive MCU.

Event aware unique circuit, which was developed as part of the Israeli smart imaging consortium. The solution enables event-driven imaging, while a unique circuit attached to each pixel makes it possible to broadcast only lines with pixels that were changed from a previous frame. This feature is specifically designed for smart-city-enabled cameras and intelligent traffic solutions.

Multi-triangulation: a unique solution for industry 4.0 applications and measurement devices of 480 ultra-accurate depth points, down to micron accuracy for close 3D inspection of production rail objects.

Built infusion allows the sensor to extract a full resolution B/W image together with a depth image from the same frame data, making image and depth fusion trivial for systems developers.

Chip design uses a standard CMOS image sensor process, with only two system power source requirements (1.8V, and 3.3V), making it a low-power, easy to integrate, and affordable solution for mass markets.

Eyal Yatskan, Newsight CTO and Co-founder noted: "Newsight has implemented significant, proven, and innovative ideas in this sensor and accelerated the capabilities of the solution to match the high-end requirements of our customers' target applications. Newsight believes that such advanced solutions can be offered at affordable prices for building high volume best ROI depth imaging products".

Newsight will be offering a complete demo system using its eTOF Lidar reference design starting August 2022.