Toshiba's Image Sensor Products Strategy
Toshiba has announced it will focus on development and sales expansion of automotive and medical imaging sensor, in addition to sales expansion with Chinese smartphone manufacturers based on the BSI (backside illumination image sensor) technology and technologies that realize high sensitivity and speed. The current image sensor market is mainly for smart phones and digital cameras and has a scale of approximately 800 billion yen [1]. Future growth is expected on such factors as expansion to automotive applications and bringing higher performance levels to existing applications.
Smartphone sensors
The volume zones for image sensor used in the main cameras mounted on current smartphones are 8- to 13-million pixels. Toshiba supplies products mounting high-sensitivity image processing technology such as HDR and Bright Mode. We have already developed a 20-million pixels sensor for high-end market. We are meeting customer needs by developing more cost-competitive products.
Automotive sensors
Currently Toshiba sells sensor for view camera. We will use our original HDR to develop automotive image sensors, as demand for such products is expected to expand in the future. We will propose a system with TMPV75 Series, our automotive image recognition LSI, so as to expand sales to both domestic and overseas customers.
Medical sensors
We have formed an alliance with and invested in CapsoVision, Inc. (CV), maker of a capsule endoscope, as one aspect of promoting Toshiba's healthcare business. We are now developing image sensor to mount in CV capsule endoscopes. We are also considering entering the market of sensors for catheters or endoscopes.
[1]: Toshiba survey.