Sunday, February 9, 2025

SPAD Image Sensors With Advanced Features

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The new generation of SPAD-powered image sensors with computational capabilities has been launched, enabling more profound insights and supporting applications in various industries.

Singular Photonics emerges from stealth with portfolio of SPAD-based image sensors
Singular Photonics emerges from stealth with portfolio of SPAD-based image sensors

Singular Photonics has launched a new generation of image sensors powered by single photon avalanche diodes (SPADs). The company, a spin-out from the University of Edinburgh’s lab, is among the first to integrate computation with SPAD-based image sensing. This enables in-pixel and cross-pixel storage and computations at low light levels, revealing details previously hidden in the material world and its photon events.

SPADs use semiconductors’ “avalanche” effect to directly convert light into an electrical current without needing cooling or amplification. While most SPAD-based image sensors focus on time-resolved photon counting, Singular’s innovation is in the layers of computation beneath 3D-stacked SPAD sensors. This approach resembles how FPGAs and GPUs transformed parallel computing with localized processing.

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Singular’s noiseless sensors capture depth and time to create 4D images, offering data-driven insights. This allows more information to be extracted from light, supporting consumer electronics, automotive, science, and medicine applications. The company’s method transforms SPAD sensors into 3D stacked computational engines, enabling tasks like real-time photon counting, timing, and processing such as in-pixel histograms, statistical analysis, and autocorrelation.

Singular has launched two sensors, both available today. Andarta, developed in collaboration with Meta, has a miniature form factor and sensitivity, making it suitable for medical imaging applications. The sensor supports multiple modes of operation, including in-pixel autocorrelation measurements, and moves SPAD integration forward in the wearables space. For instance, Andarta enables cerebral blood flow monitoring by tracking light fluctuations as it passes through tissue at depths current sensors cannot achieve.

The company’s first product, Sirona, is a 512-pixel SPAD-based line sensor capable of time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC). It facilitates applications like Raman spectroscopy, fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM), time-of-flight, and quantum technologies. With on-chip histogramming and time-binning capabilities, Sirona can potentially change spectroscopy applications.

“We are in a unique position where we already have commercially available products and are generating revenue in our first year of incorporation,” said Shahida Imani, CEO of Singular Photonics. “With new, even more advanced sensors coming to the market in 2025, we are well positioned to lead the SPAD-driven imaging revolution.”

Nidhi Agarwal
Nidhi Agarwal
Nidhi Agarwal is a Senior Technology Journalist at EFY with a deep interest in embedded systems, development boards and IoT cloud solutions.

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