MARCH 8--Frost & Sullivan (www.frost.com) has named Pixim (Palo Alto, CA; www.pixim.com) recipient of the 2006 Technology Innovation & Leadership of the Year Award in the field of video-surveillance technology in recognition of its development of the Orca chipset based on Pixim's Digital Pixel System (DPS) technology. Pixim's Orca chipset is a key value addition to camera vendors and is catalyzing innovation among video analytics developers. Both camera and video analytics vendors are benefiting from high-quality images generated by the chipset. Pixim's line of DPS chipsets is compact, easy to configure, and delivers excellent image quality in both normal and wide-dynamic-range scenes in any lighting conditions, 24/7.
"The images generated by Pixim's Orca chipset increase the accuracy of biometric-based applications, which use surveillance video as an input for authentication, by decreasing false acceptance rates," says Frost & Sullivan research analyst Karthik Nagarajan. "Since the Orca chipset can generate high-quality images in varied levels of lighting, the authentication systems become largely independent of lighting at the installation."
While camera vendors manufacture boards and enclosures, Pixim supplies the firmware, including chipsets and reference designs, for the printed-circuit boards that constitute the camera. Orca chipsets enable development of compact, low-power cameras packed with industry leading features, such as compatibility with both the NTSC and PAL video standards, allowing camera vendors to ship the same model to all markets, worldwide.
The reference designs that Pixim posts for Orca are common to most types of cameras, thereby simplifying the housing-design processes. Also, the Orca chipset can substitute at least three camera hardware components--the optical low pass filter, unshielded twisted pair related components, and custom tooling required to manage thermal resistance. These factors can help lower costs of a camera by $25 to $30.
The key innovation from Pixim is its digital pixel system, which is at the core of its chipset design. Some unique features of the DPS are pixel-independent shutter speed (global shutter), progressive scan, high dynamic range (120 dB max), maximum signal-to-noise ratio, and support for analog and IP cameras. "Orca's wide dynamic range produces high-quality images with accurate color in extreme high and low lighting," notes Nagarajan. "This feature, along with the lowest consumption rate of 1.5 W/camera, differentiates Orca from its competition."
The company plans to expand Orca's market to include verticals such as military, automotive, machine vision, biometric, and teleconferencing, which will further contribute to revenues.