Nethra Imaging debuts camera phone sensors, targeting three megapixel devices

Semiconductor company Nethra Imaging is producing chipsets to improve the image quality of camera phones and concentrating on three megapixel handsets, according to the company's press release.

The system-on-chip features "an image processing engine, 32KB of SRAM, 64KB of embedded Flash memory, an embedded ARM core and SDRAM in an 8 mm square chip scale package with 1.0 to 1.2 mm mounted thickness.  System peripherals include pulse width modulators, general purpose input-output devices and serial peripheral interfaces.

"The NI-2080 and NI-2090 products have integrated SDRAM, and NI-2070 supports external SDRAM. The product’s image processing engine is capable of processing image sensor data that in turn can produce print quality images.

"These digital-image processing SOCs are designed and architected for low power and cost sensitive applications such as camera modules in wireless and PDA imaging applications."

Competition

An article from the San Jose Mercury News reports Ramesh Singh, Nethra's CEO, says camera phone manufacturers are urging the company to work with chipset vendors.

The article says, "It remains to be seen if Nethra, which has only 30 employees, can compete with a host of other chip makers, including Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Omnivision and Micron Technology.

"Those companies currently make chips that could incorporate better image-processing functions, possibly eliminating any need for a chip such as Nethra's.  Singh says he has customers already, and he can partner with chip makers.  He would not identify those customers."

Competitive edge

Murty Bhavana, Nethra's vice president of marketing, says in the article that "rivals cannot pack as much processing power into part of a multi-function chip that would be competitive with Nethra's chips, which only do image processing.

"Nethra can keep pushing the edge with better chips that provide more image processing power as well as video recording capability that can turn cell phones into camcorders."