Agilent and IC Media Aim for Mobile Market

Electronic News, Oct 30, 2000 by Steven Fyffe

CMOS image sensors worth phoning home about

With the cell phone and digital camera markets converging fast, semiconductor companies are racing to bring out smaller and lower-power CMOS image sensors in readiness for what analysts are predicting will be an explosion of demand.

The list includes some companies you may never have heard of as well as some you have. "We are quite famous in Asia," said Ben Wu, president and chief executive officer of San Jose-based IC Media Corp. "Probably more famous than Agilent (Technologies Inc.)."

Both companies just launched new families of CMOS image sensors. And Agilent went one step further, expanding its product line to include CMOS image processors. "We have everything need to make a digital still camera," said Jason Hartlove, business unit manager of Agilent's Imaging Electronics Division, Palo Alto, Calif.

The companies are still relying on the more established PC camera and digital still camera markets while they wait for the camera-enabled cell phone market to develop. "Almost all the cell phone makers are adding in digital cameras," Wu said. "The question is: Will it become a standard add-in? Maybe we'll know the answer in three years."

Analysts are betting that built-in photography features will be popular with consumers. "There will be 1 billion cellular handsets sold in 2003," said Brian O'Rourke, senior analyst at Cahners In-Stat, Scottsdale, Ariz. "Everybody who makes cameras or image sensors is saying, 'If we can get even a tiny slice of that market, we are made.' I think within five years, cameras for cell phones will be one of the biggest markets for image sensors, even though there's no market today."

The number of cell phones with built-in digital cameras should increase dramatically from nearly zero to 60 million worldwide over the next four years, according to figures from GartnerGroup Inc.'s Dataquest unit. Industry heavyweights and contenders such as Motorola Inc., STMicroelectronics Inc., Eastman Kodak Co., Sharp Electronics Corp., Hyundai Electronics Industries Co. Ltd. and Conexant Systems Inc. are all lining up to take a swing at the emerging market.

By the time consumer acceptance reaches those figures, video-enabled cell phones could be well underway. "When 3G technology comes online in 2001 and 2002, motion video will be possible," O'Rourke said. "Right now a camera attached to a cell phone will probably only be able to send still pictures."

But there are still many technical hurdles to be vaulted before CMOS image sensors can be widely deployed in cell phones and other portable appliances, according to Jay Srivatsa, senior analyst at Dataquest in San Jose. Companies still have to solve power-consumption, integration and form-factor problems before image sensors will become a must-have feature for cell phone OEMs, he said.

To bring costs down and shrink size even further, Agilent and IC Media have made the jump from 0.5-micron down to 0.35-micron fabrication techniques with their latest product offerings.

The Agilent HDCS-1020 (CIF resolution) and HDCS-2020 (VGA resolution) CMOS image sensors are priced from $10 to $14, depending on resolution and quantity. They are priced ranging from $8 to $20, depending on model and quantity, and are now available in production quantities.

IC Media's ICM105A image sensor (VGA resolution) is priced at $7.50 each in quantities of 1,000 and is available now. It comes in a 48-pin CLCC or PLCC package.