Hewlett-Packard Company introduced a family of four complementary metal oxide silicon (CMOS) image sensors that provide higher-quality images and enable lower systems cost for digital imaging applications than currently available charge-coupled device (CCD) and CMOS image sensors.

These sensors are tuned for the resolution and performance levels required for PC video cameras and low-cost digital still cameras.

The initial CMOS sensor products are available in two resolutions, Video Graphic Array (VGA) and Common Intermediate Format (CIF), and in both color and monochrome. The VGA sensor produces 640 pixels x 480 pixels at 15 frames per second, a common format for PC and Internet applications as well as for digital cameras. The CIF sensor captures 352 pixels x 288 pixels at up to 44 frames per second.

Xirlink, Inc., one of HP's customers, says it intends to use the new sensors in its next-generation PC cameras. "HP's integrated image sensor sets a new standard for image quality and low system cost for digital image sensors," said Patrick Lin, president and chief executive officer, Xirlink, Inc. "We expect to reduce our overall system cost by 30 percent compared with our CCD PC cameras. We also will reduce the number of components in our camera, save space and reduce the camera size. With HP's breakthrough sensor technology and Xirlink's camera expertise, we are able to move the PC camera market from limited to widespread use."

"These image sensors are part of an overall initiative to bring together the components for a complete electronic-imaging solution," said Bill Sullivan, HP vice president and general manager of the Components Group. "Our product roadmap calls for a continuous stream of innovative electronic-imaging solutions, including higher-resolution sensors and a line of image-processing ICs that ultimately will produce a complete digital camera on a chip."

CMOS sensors have inherently lower power consumption; resist "blooming," which are the undesirable streaks that occur in photographing high-contrast objects; and enable higher integration at a lower cost than the CCD image sensors used in most imaging applications today. These new sensor products enable affordable, high-quality digital imaging in such applications as toys, surveillance and security cameras, and for such biometric measurements as fingerprint-recognition systems.

In addition to providing these advantages, HP has achieved a number of significant advantages over other CMOS image sensors:

The move from CCDs to CMOS sensors has been predicted at professional conferences for a couple of years, and the best work to date has been by a group in Southern California working on the rather esoteric end of the market spectrum. It is always a surprise when HP breaks into the component arena with a new part in a new technology. Whether it will remain a faithful player to the market needs is always a question with the company, probably because components are such a small drop in their very large bucket, and their history of commitment is at best, patchy. But certainly, long term, the company has an enormous interest in developing the camera-on-a-chip with sensor plus processing to be a central building block for its imaging products and publicly stated intentions of keeping those products at consumer levels.

That is certainly not the result with these first products which are certainly not consumer priced. But compared to other CMOS solutions the dark current numbers are impressive; keeping the RGB channels separate is a move that will be highly appreciated by the quality market and the programmability features of the parts will allow a wide range of manufacturers to pick it up for future products. They will, as is, be highly successful and I hope that HP keeps with it and future brings on further developments. The VGA parts will be the more lucrative with the CIF market being rather smaller at these kinds of prices.

The parts will be available in both VGA and CIF scan ratios, and in both 3-channel color and monochrome. (HDCS-2000 = VGA color, -2100 = VGA mono, -1000 = CIF color, -1100 = CIF mono.) The parts are mostly sampling now with the VGA parts in volume production December 1998 and the CIF parts in March 1999 They are in optical 44-pin gull-wing PQFPs and are priced between $17 and $25 in 1000-piece lots.