Sunday, June 06, 2010

Omnivision BSI in HTC EVO 4G

Chipworks reverse engineering revealed the 8MP Omnivision BSI sensor in one of the first WiMax mobile phones HTC EVO 4G, launched by Sprint just few days ago. The sensor's pixel size is 1.4um and Chipworks published its cross-section:


The phone also contains a second camera equipped by a more conventional Omnivision 1.3MP FSI sensor.

12 comments:

  1. Is it legal to disclose the commercial products like this ??

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  2. Absolutely yes.

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  3. This is a huge win for Omnivision.

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  4. why is this huge?

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  5. I compared this cross section with the one from Sony published at ISSCC2010 : both are using microlenses, but Sony is using a metal grid underneath the colour filters, OmniVision is not. Interesting detail !

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  6. I wonder if OV is still using a backside metal below the periphery circuitry, as a light block?

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  7. Also, the CFA looks quite thick - maybe 1.2 um thick?

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  8. This is a huge win for Omnivision? No! not enough! See WWDC

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  9. I guess it is OV's turn to shine, good job Howard and co. - hat off to you guys
    now if you could get them to yield enough ...

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  10. yeah i heard the bsi yields are so low that they eat up much of the cost reduction benefit associated w/ bsi. too bad. and i guess on the most recent earnings conference call, ovt execs were unable to give any assurance that yields could be improved. that's what's called a black swan. bad yields to that extent were not anticipated when bsi was on the drawing board and ovt was hyping the bsi concept.

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  11. "cost reduction benefit associated w/ bsi"? I always thought that BSI process is more expensive vs. FSI process because you need extra steps. 1.4 um pixel array takes same area BSI vs. FSI. Coupled with low yields customers should be willing to pay a premium or supplier is willing to forgo any profit.

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  12. iPhone 4 has 1.75 um size pixels...ouch

    http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/06/apple-wwdc-2010-242-rm-eng.jpg

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