Canon getting serious about stacked sensors

I found this interesting tidbit on BusinessWire about Canon today;

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Xperi Holding Corporation (NASDAQ: XPER) (“Xperi”) today announced Canon’s license of Invensas DBI hybrid bonding intellectual property (IP) portfolio to further enhance its image sensors.

Hybrid bonding, a foundational 3D integration technology, is increasingly being deployed in a range of semiconductor applications from image sensors to memory to reduce form factor, lower cost, enhance performance and increase functionality. In imaging applications, DBI technology has been leveraged to improve image quality, increase signal-to-noise ratios, and enable advanced features.

“Canon is recognized by customers around the world as a long-standing leader in optical and imaging products,” said Craig Mitchell, President of Invensas, a wholly owned subsidiary of Xperi. “Our DBI hybrid bonding technology is key to the continued advancement and miniaturization of semiconductors and the electronics products they are incorporated within. We are proud to support Canon’s innovation efforts in the field of image sensors and look forward to expanding our relationship in the future.”

What's so important about this? Canon has received many patents around the design of the stacked sensors, including most of the technology, however, these IP patents deal with the actual manufacturing of stacked sensors.

This could allow Canon to start swiftly creating stacked sensors based upon the Invensas DBI hybrid bonding.

How this works for image sensors, is that instead of what you would logically think of each sensor is bonded together individually, they actually bond the entire wafer at once.

This could be big news for Canon and allow them to accelerate their sensor designs dramatically.

Consider how much Canon has caught up using their existing technology now being able to move to stacked sensors will allow for very fast readout, and also global shutter sensors.  Also Canon has patented sensors that include all the DPAF autofocus logic on the sensor itself.  I can't imagine how fast the AF would be in this case.

• BusinessWire