As an important technology in the optical market, the relationship between 3D TOF and smart phones is becoming more "close", and the relationship between them may become closer next year.
Yesterday, an industry insider revealed to the author, “In the second half of this year, the amount of 3D TOF technology on the mobile phone should not be too much, but there are several models that will be equipped with this technology, and next year 3D TOF may enter the larger market. Scale application."
Regarding this remark, the author learned from analysis and vcsel related people that 3D TOF will gradually increase in mobile phone applications next year, especially in rear applications.
3D TOF or will enter large-scale applications
Under the integration of full screen and face recognition, several new technologies in the optical market have emerged. Throughout the 3D TOF technology, from the announcement of mass production conditions in June to the official commercialization of OPPO R17 Pro in August, TOF is used in mobile phones. The end application has just begun.
It is understood that in the second half of this year, vivo will release a new machine with front TOF, and in addition to vivo, there will be a new machine equipped with 3D TOF in the second half of this year. At the same time, the situation reflected from the supply chain Look, next year the application of this technology on mobile phones is expected to be further improved.
The author is informed that there are currently three mainstream 3D vision technologies in the industry to allow mobile phones to change from plane vision to stereo vision, including binocular stereo vision solutions, 3D structured light solutions and TOF solutions. The binocular stereo vision scheme belongs to the passive acquisition scheme, and the 3D structured light scheme and TOF belong to the active acquisition scheme.
The active collection scheme is then aimed at subdividing application scenarios. 3D structured light is suitable for short-distance 3D information collection, while TOF is suitable for relatively long-distance 3D information collection. The scope of application and imagination of this program is also wider, and the outside world The time when we started to pay attention to the TOF program may have to go back to the MWCS 2018 held in Shanghai in June this year.
According to earlier data, TOF technology is equivalent to adding depth information in the Z-axis direction on the basis of traditional 2D XY-axis imaging, and finally 3D image information can be generated, so the dimensions of the accuracy of the generated 3D image information are judged. , To add the accuracy of the Z direction, that is, the longitudinal direction, which is the key to all 3D imaging technologies.
However, from the perspective of market applications, the 3D camera solutions are mainly focused on structured light and TOF solutions. The author has learned that the principle of 3D structured light is to emit diffracted light spots on the object, and the sensor receives the deformed light spot. The amount of spot deformation is used to judge the depth information. The energy density of the diffracted spot emitted by it will decrease at a certain distance, so it should not be used for long-distance depth information collection.
The TOF technology emits not speckle, but a surface light source, so within a certain distance, TOF light information will not appear a lot of attenuation. At the same time, the Pixel of the TOF photosensitive element is very large, reaching 10um, which is enough for light collection In theory, as long as the power of the transmitter is increased, the operating distance of TOF will be very far.
Based on this, the rear TOF may be more popular in the future. At the same time, according to the Economic Daily, the iPhone released by Apple next year is expected to be upgraded to a triple rear camera configuration. In addition to stronger performance, next year’s new iPhone Or will be equipped with TOF 3D recognition technology.
If this news is true, then the future development of TOF can be imagined.
The post-dual-shot +TOF plan may continue to spread
The above-mentioned source continued to say, “In the later period, the application of three cameras on mobile phones will increase, and the dual-camera + TOF solution may become more popular.â€
As for the development trend of mobile phone cameras, another camera module manufacturer related personnel gave his own opinion. He believes that the front camera will also be miniaturized, while the rear pixels may be reduced.
However, what is interesting is that the author learned from the supply chain that a certain domestic brand may launch a new under-screen camera by the end of this year.
As for the TOF solution, some research institutions said that it is expected that TOF will become the mainstream in the future. Its advantages are small size and low price. If more mobile phone manufacturers use TOF modules in the future, the possibility of using hybrid lenses will decrease because of TOF. The transmitting end lens can only use a plastic lens.
It is understood that TOF has five core hardware units, including infrared emission unit, optical lens, imaging sensor, control unit and core algorithm calculation unit.
The infrared emission unit includes Vcsel transmitter, Diffuser (diffuser). Vcsel emits a pulsed square wave with a wavelength of 940nm. The infrared light of this wavelength is non-visible light, and at the same time, it has the least amount in the optical spectrum, which can avoid the interference of ambient light. Due to the light source emitted by Vcsel, the light will be modulated into a uniform surface light source through the Diffuser, and then emitted.
The optical lens is used to condense the reflected light and image on the optical sensor. However, unlike ordinary optical lenses, a narrow-band filter is needed to ensure that only light with the same wavelength as the emitted light signal (ie 940nm) can be used. Enter, the purpose of this is to suppress incoherent light sources to reduce background noise, while preventing the sensor from being overexposed due to external light interference.
The imaging sensor is similar to the photosensitive element of a general camera. It is used to receive the reflected light and perform photoelectric conversion on the Sensor. However, due to the principle of TOF, the photosensitive time of the Sensor is very short, reaching the nanosecond level, so the single pixel size is more than Generally, cameras are much larger. For example, the pixel size of RGB currently in use is 1um, while the TOF Sensor of OPPO R17 Pro has a pixel size of 10um.
The control unit is the driver IC of the laser transmitter. It can drive the laser with high-frequency pulses with an upper limit of 100MHz, while eliminating all kinds of interference, ensuring that the driving waveform is a perfect square wave, and the rising and falling edges are within 0.2ns. Left and right, so as to effectively ensure the extraction of high-precision depth accuracy.
Returning to the TOF technology, if the technology enters large-scale applications next year, from the perspective of several core components of the product, Vcsel and optical filters will become the main beneficiaries among them.
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