OmniVision Announces New Mobile Sensor

OmniVision Technologies Inc. the leading developer of advanced digital imaging solutions recently announced the OV5690. This is the first 5 megapixel sensor to use OmniVision’s OmniBSI-2 pixel architecture. The 1.4-micron backside illumination pixel allows for a full five megapixels in a quarter inch optical format and twenty percent reduction in camera module height thus making it a solution for slim smartphones and tablets.

New 5MP sensor announced for slim smartphones and tablets

Per Rosdahl, product marketing manager at OmniVision said that with industry sources placing 5-megapixel CMOS image sensors at more than 15 percent of the overall sensor market today, they view 5-megapixel sensors as occupying as a sweet spot in the market. He went on to say that some industry analysts believe that market share may exceed 30 percent by 2014 driven by the demand for higher performance resolution and increasingly slim mobile handsets, smart phone and tablet designs. With the OV5690 CameraChip, OmniVision brings a highly competitive, no compromise solution to market, combining best-in-class performance while enabling extremely thin building height.

The announcement for the new image sensor goes on to claim that the OV5690 has advanced features including 1080p high definition (HD) video recording at 30 frames per second, an integrated scaler, and 2 x 2 binning functionality with re-sampling filter. This scaler enables electronic image stabilization, while maintaining full field of view in 720p and 1080p HD video modes that allows for HD video with digital video zoom functionality. The OV5690’s post-binning re-sampling filter minimizes spatial artifacts and removes image artifacts around edges, producing clean, crisp color images for 720p / 60 HD video in binning mode.