Newsight and ZKW develop Vehicle Lightning based on CMOS Imager

12 June, 2019

The companies will jointly develop innovative safety and driver monitoring systems that ZKW will offer its customers

ZKW Group from Wieselburg, Austria, is entering a new era of smart lightning solutions for the future car and the autonomous driving, and is looking for new ideas and technology. This week it announced a a collaboration agreement with Newsight Imaging from Ness Ziona, near Tel Aviv, a provider of advanced CMOS image sensor chips for machine vision. The future product’s traits are kept secret, but the companies said they will jointly develop innovative safety and driver monitoring systems that ZKW will offer its customers, leading OEMs in the automotive market.

“The collaboration with Newsight Imaging in the field of advanced, customizable CMOS image sensor technology enables us to increase road safety through smart lighting,” said Ralf Klädtke, CTO of ZKW Group. The Automotive industry is under a profound re-shape process, and this includes also lightning solutions. The once simple halogen headlight, the Automotive lightning has evolved into a high-tech product.

New World of Smart Lightning

Laser lights, LEDs, and other technologies are facilitating innovative applications like glare-free high beams. ZKW is making its way into miniature lasers, Micro Electrical Mechanical Systems (MEMS), organic light emitting diodes (OLED) and specialized LED configurations. ZKW is a premium supplier of brands like BMW, Volvo, Mercedes, Audi, Ford and Volkswagen. With roughly 10,000 employees, it generated in 2018 total revenues of over 1.34-billion euros.

Newsight Imaging brings to the collaboration a new kind of CMOS Imager. Its NSI3000 chip (photo above) is a CMOS sensor produced in TowerJazz that was designed for Machine Vision applications. It is composed of 8 rows of 2048 pixels each, of which 4 rows are of 4µm x 8µm pixels and 4 rows are of 4µm x 4µm pixels. Binning the large pixels provide Ultra-high sensitivity while using the small pixels provide a fine signal with effective resolution of 8192 pixels with low power dissipation and compact size.

It provides direct pixel control by programming, frame rate up to 40,000 fps and Multiple Readout modes. These days the company is developing an innovative sensor based on the field-proven patented eTOF technology (Enhanced Time-of-Flight) for the acquisition of depth points. “Given ZKW’s advanced systems technology and market footprint, we believe that this is a major milestone for Newsight,” said Eli Assoolin, CEO and Co-founder of Newsight Imaging.

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Posted in: Automotive , ElectroOptics , News , Semiconductors