Reinventing The Lens: Next-Gen Focus & Zoom Technology: Industry Report

Reinventing The Lens: Next-Gen Focus & Zoom Technology

Product Type: Market Research Report
Published by: Future Image Inc
Published: February 2007
Product Code: R322-42

Description

Over the past ten years, photographic cameras have almost completely transitioned from silver halide film to electronic sensors. But the other key component — the lens — has remained largely unchanged... Until now. The mobile phone industry, with its huge demand for embedded cameras, is driving a broad set of new requirements for miniaturized, rugged, low-cost, low-power, high-performance lens and actuator combinations. As they come to market, the superior value proposition of those optical assemblies will threaten to displace traditional optics in cameras of all types. As a result, the business of designing and making lenses is undergoing its most fundamental upheaval since the Renaissance.

CMOS sensor developers have responded to consumer preferences for slimmer and slimmer handsets by shrinking their chips so that more pixels can be squeezed into an ever-smaller footprint. As pixel sizes shrink, standard fixed-focus lenses found on must camera-phones cannot pass the test of focusing light onto these tiny pixels. This presents a growing challenge — and an opportunity — to optical assembly designers and component suppliers to supply lens and actuator combinations that can provide both focus and zoom in smaller and smaller footprints.

“Reinventing the Lens: Next-Gen Focus & Zoom Technology,” a research study just published by Future Image, the leading independent center of expertise on the convergence of imaging, technology, and business, and host of the 6Sight® Future of Imaging conference, investigates the next generation of technologies being deployed to provide focus and zoom to the tiny cameras found in mobile phones and a wide variety of other applications such as medical research and robotics. “At our 6Sight conference last October, industry players were nearly unanimous in forecasting that top tier camera-phones would need auto-focus and optical zoom to meet consumer expectations. To deliver that DSC-like functionality, systems that can move or reshape lenses are required. The companies we analyze in this report are at the forefront of the drive to provide those capabilities.”

The 53-page report with 32 illustrations looks first at the changing requirements for mobile camera modules brought about by changing consumer preferences, including the latest developments in CMOS image sensors and explains why these changes require a new approach to the ‘traditional’ focus and zoom technology found in DSCs. Future Image conducted a survey and follow-up interviews with four of the leading vendors of next-generation focus and zoom technology: Artificial Muscle, Inc. (AMI), Nanomotion/Johnson Electric, New Scale Technologies, Inc. and Varioptic SA. All four vendors and their solutions are profiled. The study concludes with our analysis of the competing solutions and the outlook for their success. Among the more than two-dozen topics covered by our vendor survey were the following:

Technology Description
Advantages
Compared to traditional actuators
Compared to competing technologies
Compared to competing products that employ similar technology
Disadvantages
Compared to traditional actuators
Compared to competing technologies
Compared to competing products that employ similar technolog
Product Information
Speed — responsiveness, time in seconds to achieve focus (if applicable)
User experience — what, if any, differences will the end-user notice when using a camera-phone or camera that has your actuator vs. a standard, traditional actuator?
Manufacturing supply (can you meet the quantity and quality requirements of the CMA?
Track record (evidence of reputation, reliability, financial stability, etc.)

Table of Contents

I. Introduction: 1. Reinventing the lens; 2. Next-Gen Focus & Zoom Technologies
II. Vendor Profiles: 3. Artificial Muscle Inc.; 4. Johnson Electric / Nanomotion; 5. New Scale Technologies, Inc.; 6. Varioptic SA
III. Conclusions & Outlook: 7. Conclusions & Outlook
TABLE OF FIGURES: Fig. 1 - Sharp 5MP CCD camera module LZ0P3770 with; Fig. 2 - Toshiba A5504T, Kyocera TK41, Motorola RZR V3; Fig. 3 - Samsung Ultra Edition handsets; Fig. 4 - Grid showing 36 2.2-micron pixels on the cross section; Fig. 5 - Schematic of a typical mobile camera module; Fig. 6 - First auto-focus camera: Konica C35 AF; Fig. 7 - Afocal zoom lens system; Fig. 8 - Digital vs. optical zoom; Fig. 9 - Phones that incorporate optical zoom; Fig. 10 - A simple DC motor; Fig. 11 - FDK Corporation SM3.7 series: the world’s smallest; Fig. 12 - Sharp 5MP, 3x optical zoom module compared to; Fig. 13 - MIGA Motors SMA-based Displacement Multiplied; Fig. 14 - How dialectric elastomers work; Fig. 15 - Electrowetting: a droplet of liquid on a hydrophobic; Fig. 16 - A cutaway illustration of AMI’s Universal Muscle; Fig. 17 - AMI’s DLP-95 compared to a dime; Fig. 18 - Cross-section of AMI’s DLP-95 camera module; Fig. 19 - A drawing illustrating the linear motion created by the; Fig. 20 - A comparison of the macro performance of (top to; Fig. 21 - NanoLens module; Fig. 22 - NanoZoom module; Fig. 23 - NanoZoom 13-mm Zoom motion unit; Fig. 24 - Illustration of SQIGGLE motor with the parts labeled; Fig. 25 - Illustration of a camera module showing the lens; Fig. 26 - New Scale SQIGGLE motor SQL-1.55-6 on a fingertip ..30; Fig. 27 - A prototype optical zoom module from New Scale,; Fig. 28 - A Varioptic lens with the current ON and OFF; Fig. 29 - Centering a liquid droplet; Fig. 30 - Schematic drawing for a prototype optical zoom lens; Fig. 31 - AFCM MI285 2MP auto-focus camera module; Fig. 32 - Varioptic Lenses Artic 320 and Arctic 416, compared

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