STMicro and Metalenz join hands for the nano-structure lens tech

To further strengthen its position in the market of ToF proximity and distance sensors, STMicroelectronics is joining hands with a new company called Metalenz to develop manufacturing processes for Metalenz’s meta-optics technology for next-generation smartphones, consumer devices, healthcare, and automotive applications. Metalenz has developed a breakthrough technology called multifunctional meta-surface optics enabling new forms of sensing for the next generation of smartphones and other consumer devices, as well as healthcare and automotive applications. For example a camera built around this new flat-lens technology can collect more light for brighter images and produce images of the same or better quality than traditional refractive lenses while consuming less power and taking up less space. The lenses built using this technology will feature nanostructures one-thousandth the width of a human hair. These nanostructures appropriately bend light rays to realize in a single layer the same functionality as a complex multi-element refractive lens system. ST said it will integrate Metalenz’s meta-surface optics technology into ST’s existing diffractive optics manufacturing process at its 300mm wafer fab in Crolles, France, leveraging ST’s position at the forefront of the fast-growing Near-Infrared (NIR) optical sensing market. Today ST leads the market for time-of-flight...