Sony Corp, the biggest maker of camera chips used in smartphones, is boosting production of next-generation 3D sensors after customers, including Apple Inc, have shown interest.
The chips are to power front and rear-facing 3D cameras of models from several smartphone makers next year, with Sony kicking off mass production in late summer to meet demand, said Satoshi Yoshihara, head of Sony’s sensor division.
He declined to provide sales or production targets, but said that the 3D business is already operating profitably and would make an impact on earnings from the fiscal year starting in April.
Photo: Bloomberg
Sony’s bullish outlook for 3D cameras provides much-needed optimism to the global smartphone industry, which is suffering a slowdown as consumers find fewer reasons to upgrade devices.
The Tokyo-based company has started providing software toolkits to outside developers so that they can experiment with the chips and create apps that generate models of faces for communication or virtual objects for online shopping.
“Cameras revolutionized phones and, based on what I’ve seen, I have the same expectation for 3D,” said Yoshihara, who has worked for more than a decade on wider industry adoption of cameras in smartphones. “The pace will vary by field, but we’re definitely going to see adoption of 3D. I’m certain of it.”
Sony controls about half of the camera chip market and supplies customers including Apple, Alphabet Inc and Samsung Electronics Co, although Yoshihara declined to identify them by name, citing confidentiality agreements.
Huawei Technologies Co (華為) is employing Sony’s 3D cameras in next-generation models, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg earlier this month.
Sony is not the only maker of 3D chips, with rivals Lumentum Holdings Inc and STMicroelectronics NV already finding uses for them, such as unlocking phones through facial recognition or measuring depth to improve focus when taking pictures at night.
To be sure, demand for Sony’s technology is untested and it remains to be seen if consumer interest in 3D would be enough to snap the smartphone market out of its funk. Annual global shipments probably fell 3 percent this year with growth of just 2.6 percent expected for next year, International Data Corp said.
Yoshihara also said there will only be a need for two 3D chips on devices, for the front and back, despite a trend by smartphone makers to have three or more cameras.
During the interview, Sony showed several examples using a custom phone with a 3D camera on its rear.
In one app, users made specific hand gestures to cast magic spells inside a virtual game. In another, the phone calculated the depth of the room and accurately displayed a virtual goldfish swimming in front of and behind real-life objects.
“The most important thing in the coming year will be to get people excited,” Yoshihara said.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS