Infineon Technologies has collaborated with software and 3D Time of Flight (ToF) system specialist pmdtechnologies to develop the world’s smallest 3D image sensor, and is presenting it at CES 2020 in Las Vegas.

The new REAL3™ single-chip solution measures 4.4 x 5.1 mm, allowing it to be incorporated into small size devices to provide high resolution data with low power consumption.

(Image: Infineon)

“With the fifth generation of our REAL3™ chip we are once again demonstrating our leading position in the field of 3D sensors,” said Andreas Urschitz, President of the Power Management and Multimarket Division at Infineon, which also includes sensor business. “We see great growth potential for 3D sensors, since the range of applications in the areas of security, image use and context-based interaction with the devices will steadily increase.” The 3D sensor also allows the device to be controlled via gestures, so that human-machine interaction is context-based and without touch.

According to LEDinside’s latest report, “2020 Infrared Sensing Application Market Trend- Mobile 3D Sensing, LiDAR and Driver Monitoring System,” over 10 types of high-end smartphones are expected to use 3D sensing solutions and some of them will expand the use of 3D sensing in the front and rear cameras in 2020. LEDinside predicts that the VCSEL market scale used for 3D sensing in mobile devices will be likely to grow by 30% in 2020.