Camera on a chip
Photobit CEO Sabrina Kemeny's tiny image sensors will bring us "Get Smart"-style watches and cellphones that take snapshots.

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By Mark Compton

May 22, 2000 | In the early '90s, a crack team of researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) set out to dramatically advance the state of image-capture technology. Their goal: smaller, cheaper, faster image sensors that could work using less power than the CCD (charge-coupled device) chipsets that had been carried aboard all previous space missions.

It just so happens that that team, led by Eric Fossum, managed to hit a major home run -- exploiting standard CMOS technology to invent new "active pixel" image sensors capable of making a big difference not just for the fly boys but also for industry at large. Image sensors that came in smaller packages and drew less power enabled a host of new image-gathering possibilities for the space program -- and now appear to be driving a whole new generation of consumer electronics, medical imaging and machine devices to market.

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The brass at JPL was so impressed by the new image sensors they awarded the NASA Group Achievement Award to the team, while Fossum himself was bestowed with promotions and honors in keeping with his accomplishments. But industry could barely stifle a yawn. People just didn't get it. And that, in turn, bemused and irked the scientists -- particularly Fossum and his wife, Sabrina Kemeny, who was also part of the JPL active-pixel development team. Ultimately, they and several other core members decided to look at this as an opportunity to get in touch with their inner entrepreneurs. The result is Photobit Corp., an up-and-coming "camera-on-a-chip" image-sensor maker situated in Pasadena, Calif. -- just a short Scud trajectory from JPL itself.

Kemeny, who runs the business, says the transition from white smocks to business suits hasn't proved to be traumatic at all, no doubt true since Photobit is now showing every sign of becoming a real player in the imaging industry.

For decades, digital imaging has evolved around the expanding capabilities of CCD chipsets. But then along comes this new CMOS "camera-on-a-chip" technology, which some say will transform the worlds of photography and video. What are the revolutionary differences?

Well, power, cost and accessibility; those are the three biggest. Reducing the power requirements is key for the wireless world, as well as for all other portable electronics. With CMOS image sensors, people can now have cameras on their wrists, on their laptops, on their PDAs, on their cellphones -- all because you can basically run a CMOS sensor off a watch battery.

The economic difference has to do with the fact that we can now produce high-quality images using standard CMOS and leverage off the multibillion-dollar CMOS fabrication industry. And that allows for low production costs.

But the thing that has really changed the face of imaging in recent years is access. In the not-so-distant past, the major Japanese camera suppliers -- companies like Sony, Panasonic, Sharp and Toshiba -- also made their own CCD image-sensor chipsets. So they were completely vertically integrated, building everything from the CCDs up through the optics to the full camera assemblies. And that meant new product development was basically determined by just a few companies. But the advent of CMOS image-sensor technology ... has opened up all that so other companies can compete on the basis of new innovations ... That's why Logitech and Intel and Kensington -- companies that really aren't your traditional camera companies -- now are able to enrich the field with all kinds of new solutions.

One other difference I should probably mention is that, much to my dismay, the cost of CCDs has also been forced down dramatically over the past few years. So even those customers that aren't buying CMOS are now able to buy CCD sensors at a much more reasonable price because of how CMOS has affected the market.

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