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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ActLight (Delivering a new, key enabling technology that will drive the development of far-reaching advances in photonics, nanotechnology and advanced manufacturing)

Teaser

Summary

Consumers anxiously await the broad introduction of affordable 3D smartphone cameras for mobile applications, as well as industry breakthroughs like autonomous vehicles, which are guided by LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sensors.
Cutting-edge technologies such as LIDAR and 3D camera imaging rely on the accurate measurement of extremely weak light intensities.
The modern detectors, such as single photon avalanche diodes (SPAD) is very sensitive and can detect even smallest portion of light - a single photon.
SPAD has one critical drawback: it operates at high voltage. When integrating a SPAD sensor into mobile devices, a high voltage is generated on the chip, requiring power-hungry and area-consuming circuits. High voltage also complicates the array building.
ActLightâ€™s Dynamic Photodiode (DPD) technology offers a technological breakthrough in light sensing. DPD can combine single-photon sensitivity with low operational voltage.

Work performed

We analysed the segmentation of 3D sensing market. As a result of the study the two market verticals were confirmed: 3D sensors for smartphones and sensors for self-driven cars. We consider smartphones as a first target due to already existing high volume market and less demanding specifications compared to the autonomous vehicles. More demanding automotive market considered as a second goal for the technology market introduction.
Interviews with potential customers confirms the need of a single photon low voltage detector. The interest comes from the companies working on both mobile and automotive markets.
The competition monitoring shows that SPAD based solutions stays limited to single pixel or low resolution. ST stays the leader of the 3D sensing solutions based on the single photon detectors, but ams came on the market with similar products.
We performed a freedom to operate study. We were not able to find any patent which can limit freedom to operate for Actlight IP. To best of our knowledge, none of analysed patents can significantly limit FTO for ActLight clients.
The interviews with experts in quantum computing field shows that it is still in the early stage of development and different concepts are under consideration. The quantum inscription market is still small, and cannot be considered as a primary goal for ActLight.

Final results

To become a component provider and bring the fully integrated low voltage single photon detectors solutions on the market will require considerable resources. Thatâ€™s why IP licensing model looks more realistic. We are planning to license our IP to the semiconductor companies, who will produce the final sensor solution. We are planning to focus initially on the smartphone market, which has less demanding sensors specifications compared to automotive market.