Jun 21 2010
OmniVision Technologies, a leading advanced digital imaging solutions’ developer, has introduced the OV5640, a total 5-megapixel system-on-a-chip (SOC) camera solution that is targeted at the mass volume auto-focus (AF) camera phone market.
Built on the 1.4-µm OmniBSI backside illumination (BSI) technology from OmniVision, the OV5640 has been optimized to provide a total, cost-effective, camera solution that has very good pixel performance for 1080 or 720p high-definition (HD) video and 5-megapixel photography in camera phones.
OmniVision OV14810 - 14.6-megapixel RAW sensor for DSC and very high-end mobile phones
Being a single-chip SOC system, the OV5640 can be tuned more easily than two-chip solutions (external ISP and RAW), rendering it very useful for the customers relating to issues of ease of platform integration, cost, and time-to-revenue.
The embedded AF control of the sensor along with voice coil motor driver provides additional cost savings for the end customer, rendering the OV5640 a very attractive option for other 5-megapixel sensors existing in the market.
The OV5640 is able to facilitate 1080p HD video with 30 fps and 720p HD video with 60 frames per second (fps) with total user control over output and formatting data transfer. It can capture the 720p/60 HD video in a full field of view (FOV) with binning of 2 x 2, resulting in doubling the sensitivity and enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In addition, a distinctive functionality of the post-binning re-sampling filter eliminates zigzag artifacts surrounding the slant edges and reduces to a minimum the spatial artifacts for delivering more crisper and sharper color images.
To further enhance user experience and camera performance, the OV5640 has an internal anti-shake engine to stabilize the images. The OV5640 provides a high-speed dual-lane type of MIPI interface and a parallel interface for the digital video port (DVP), for supporting multiple output formats. The automatic image control functions of the sensor include automatic black level calibration (ABLC), automatic exposure control (AEC), 50/60Hz automatic luminance detection, automatic white balance (AWB), and automatic band filter (ABF).