The companies announced the successful development of a breakthrough SWIR automotive and industrial imaging sensor that enables visible driving in extremely harsh environments. The 1.3-megapixel, 7-micron pixel sensor array demonstrates excellent SWIR spectral response, which can significantly enhance environmental recognition capabilities for automotive driver assistance systems.

The new sensor utilizes Tower Semiconductor’s advanced backside illumination germanium photodiodes technology, along with a unique 3D stacked pixel-level electrical interconnect technique, to realize a CMOS-based monolithic integrated SWIR solution that greatly reduces costs while improving performance to sense wavelengths far beyond the range of silicon-based materials.

TriEye’s SWIR sensing system can achieve clear vision in various adverse weather and lighting conditions, making it especially suitable for extreme driving environments with low illumination, heavy fog, and thick smoke, reliably ensuring transportation safety. In comparison, existing SWIR sensors are prohibitively expensive, making it difficult to deploy them at scale in automotive and other high-volume commercial markets. TriEye’s CMOS-based SWIR image sensor offers superior price/performance ratio and easier integration with automotive electronics, enabling significantly lower manufacturing costs.

With the automotive market’s growing demand for autonomous driving, TriEye’s SWIR solutions directly address the industry’s advancing needs. Tower Semiconductor has maintained close cooperation with TriEye for years, supporting the development and iteration of TriEye’s SWIR technology. The two companies’ complementary technological strengths and collaborative relationship enables the introduction of SWIR imaging solutions with market-leading characteristics, injecting new momentum into the automotive-grade SWIR and infrared imaging market.

Tower Semiconductor’s Sensors and Displays Division Senior Vice President Avi Strum expressed excitement at achieving this milestone progress after years of partnership with the TriEye team, and noted that its successful commercialization will boost the entire automotive infrared imaging industry. TriEye CEO Avi Bakal also looks forward to the promising collaboration, regarding Tower Semiconductor as an ideal industrial partner for its CMOS SWIR solutions.

This high-performance, low-cost automotive-grade SWIR sensor will greatly enhance environmental perception for autonomous vehicles, enabling safer driving under various adverse weather conditions and providing automakers with a key differential advantage along with massive market opportunities.

With the deepening integration of automotive electronics and intelligence, the pressing needs for advanced image recognition and refined environmental sensing create strong demand aligned with the breakthrough SWIR sensor collaboration between Tower Semiconductor and TriEye. Their joint innovation is poised to become an essential component of automotive imaging systems, profoundly impacting industry development. The two companies’ sustained innovation and collaboration will continue leading the next wave of technological innovation in automotive electronics.