Omnivision Announces Compact 8-Megapixel Camerachip Solution For Smartphones And Tablets

“Reports are predicting that more than 1.8 billion smartphones and 250 million tablets will be produced annually by 2015[1], with the majority of this growth expected to come from developing markets like China and India. We are bringing to market the OV8865 at a time when manufacturers in these booming markets are looking for a cost-competitive camera solution for their slim and feature-rich devices with extended battery life,” said Harish Iyer, product marketing manager at OmniVision. “The 8-megapixel OV8865 has been re-engineered from top to bottom. With an enhanced 1.4-micron OmniBSI-2 pixel, the OV8865 has improved camera performance and image quality when compared to our last generation 8-megapixel sensor, and offers smaller package-size and lower power consumption.”

The OV8865 provides a number of performance improvements over the previous generation OV8835 CameraChip sensor. These improvements, including a 50 percent reduction in dark current and a five percent improvement in dynamic range, result in superior high- and low-light image capture. Additionally, the OV8865 consumes considerably less power when compared to the OV8835, achieving the sub-200 mW benchmark currently favored by many high-end mobile device manufacturers.

Utilizing OmniVision’s advanced 1.4-micron OmniBSI-2™ pixel architecture, the 1/3.2-inch OV8865 supports an active array of 3264 x 2448 pixels (8-megapixel) operating at 30 frames per second (FPS) for high-speed photography. The sensor is also capable of capturing 1080p high definition (HD) video at 30 FPS or 720p HD video at 60 FPS with electronic image stabilization, at 100 percent horizontal field of view. The OV8865’s 2 x 2 binning functionality with post-binning resampling filter minimizes spatial artifacts and removes image artifacts around sharp edges to deliver clean, crisp color images.

The OV8865 comes in a smaller footprint when compared to the OV8835, fitting into a thin 8.5 x 8.5 x 5 mm module. It is currently available for sampling and is expected to enter volume production in the fourth quarter of 2013.