Thursday, October 2, 2008
2008 R&D 100 Winner
Over the years, cell phones have greatly shrunk in size while the number of gadgets they hold have increased markedly. Among the most popular additions to the modern mobile phone is the integrated camera. Unfortunately, these have not kept pace with miniaturization, resulting in bulky camera modules with limited flexibility.
Tessera Technologies, Inc., San Jose, Calif., bypasses the cumbersome optics and places their OptiML Wafer-Level Camera directly on the wafer, reducing the camera module profile by 50%. The camera optics are manufactured at the wafer level. These wafers are bonded and aligned, then diced into individual optical lens stacks to be mounted onto a packaged image sensor. The optics are built using reflow-compatible materials to minimize costs, while the complex asphere optical design of the camera meets industry performance standards. Tessera’s micron-level manufacturing process yields high camera performance in a small package with a bill of materials savings of 30%.
Technology
Camera
Developer
Tessera Technologies, Inc.
