Thursday, October 8, 2015

Activity at SONY

A couple of things of note have happened at SONY in the last couple of days. Both things might impact SONY and MicroVision... how exactly, I'm not sure. These events create more questions than they answer. 

That Sony has spun off the Image sensor spin off effects their "devices" division which is almost certainly the home of PicoP at SONY. How this ultimately effects MicroVision, I don't know. I have a couple of theories that aren't ready for prime time.

And Sony Publishing (the part that holds the Michael Jackson Library)


Sony has announced a restructuring of its devices division that underlines the success and importance of the company's image sensor operations. The devices segment is mainly comprised of Sony's storage, battery, and semiconductor businesses, but the latter of those — which is primarily focused on image sensors — is being spun off into a new company called Sony Semiconductor Solutions.

The divisions that currently handle semiconductor manufacturing and design, Sony Semiconductor Corporation and Sony LSI Design, will both become subsidiaries of the new company. Sony's storage media operations will fall under manufacturing arm Sony Storage Media and Devices Corporation, meanwhile, and the battery business will fall to Sony Energy Devices Corporation.


SONY buys SoftKinetic

Tokyo, Japan - Sony Corporation ("Sony") is announcing that it has completed the acquisition of Softkinetic Systems S.A. ("Softkinetic"), after reaching an agreement with the company and its major shareholders. With this acquisition, Softkinetic - which possesses time-of-flight ("ToF") range image sensor technology, as well as related systems and software - has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony.

ToF is a method for resolving the distance to an object. ToF distance measurement pixels, which are laid on top of the sensor in two dimensions, measure the flight time (delay) it takes for light to leave the light source, reflect off the object, and return to the image sensor. 

Sony will focus on combining Softkinetic's ToF range image sensor technology expertise with its own technologies with the aim of developing the next generation of range image sensors and solutions, not only in the field of imaging, but for broader sensing-related applications as well. 

No comments:

Post a Comment