Lensless Smart Sensors

Tiny, cost-effective sensing technology focuses on growing IoT target markets

SUNNYVALE, Calif., and BARCELONA, Spain – February 22, 2016 –  Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ:RMBS) today announced that it has furthered its innovative lensless smart sensor (LSS) technology to demonstrate thermal sensing capabilities. By extending the award-winning LSS technology to include thermal sensing capabilities, Rambus is broadening the applicability of the technology, enabling new and enhanced functionality for many Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Target applications that can benefit from the small size and affordability of thermal and visible LSS technology include automotive passenger detection, virtual and augmented reality eye tracking, and smart home presence detection.

“LSS can enable a future where IoT technology is infused into many aspects of modern life, from smart cities and transportation to medical equipment and manufacturing,” said Dr. Gary Bronner, vice president of Rambus Labs. “With the addition of these new capabilities, LSS can replace traditional thermal lenses with optical gratings that are significantly less expensive, making LSS ideal for cost-sensitive IoT applications.”

First unveiled in 2014, the Rambus LSS technology has brought a fundamentally new approach to imaging that shifts the function of traditional optics to computation and eliminates the need for expensive lenses by replacing them with tiny inexpensive diffractive gratings. The gratings, combined with optimized algorithms and off-the-shelf thermal or visible sensors, perform a wide range of functions, such as gesture recognition, eye tracking, object identification and depth sensing. Over the past year, Rambus’ Partners-in-Open-Development (POD) program has allowed for a handful of select design and technology companies to implement and accelerate the development of LSS for new use cases.

To learn more about the Lensless Smart Sensor technology, visit rambus.com/lss.

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About Rambus Inc.
Rambus creates cutting-edge semiconductor and IP products, spanning memory and interfaces to security, smart sensors and lighting. Our chips, customizable IP cores, architecture licenses, tools, services, training and innovations improve the competitive advantage of our customers. We collaborate with the industry, partnering with leading ASIC and SoC designers, foundries, IP developers, EDA companies and validation labs. Our products are integrated into tens of billions of devices and systems, powering and securing diverse applications, including Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, consumer and media platforms. At Rambus, we are makers of better. For more information, visit rambus.com.

Collaboration with inaugural partners — frog and IXDS — enables development across critical IoT application areas

SUNNYVALE, Calif., and BARCELONA, Spain — March 2, 2015 — Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ:RMBS) today announced its Partners-in-Open-Development (POD) program in collaboration with design firms frog and IXDS to promote the adoption of its lensless smart sensor (LSS) technology. The Rambus LSS technology represents a fundamentally new approach to sensing that shifts the function of traditional optics to computation, eliminating the need for expensive lenses. By replacing traditional sensor refraction optics with lensless diffraction and computation, LSS technology enables ultra-miniature form-factor and low-power design, ideal for a wide range of Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

“Our work with lensless smart sensors through the POD program is helping to pave the way for innovations that are sure to inspire and become ubiquitous throughout our lives,” said Andrew Zimmerman, president of frog. “The opportunity to partner with Rambus, through our R&D platform frogLabs™ and other organizations, to build out the burgeoning sensor ecosystem means we are helping to propel solutions that can be adopted much more quickly.”

“Opening its innovative lensless smart technology to the developer community enables Rambus to promote what promises to be a robust, intelligent ecosystem around this new approach to sensing and imaging,” said Dr. Reto Wettach, founder and design director with IXDS. “We are proud to be among the inaugural POD partners and look forward to being among the first contributors to identify and expand upon existing IoT-based applications for this technology.”

The Rambus lensless smart sensor technology consists of spiral grating diffractive optics and computational algorithms that enable reduced computation times and superior design flexibility, delivering more data and improved accuracy versus current sensors comparable in size, power and cost. The combination of spiral grating diffractive optics and computational algorithms provide high fidelity output for greater accuracy and more sophisticated capabilities in the areas of gesture recognition, depth and range tracking, point finding and advanced object recognition.

“With the need for smart sensors growing, our engineers have invented novel ways to become the eyes of the IoT,” said Gary Bronner, vice president of Rambus Labs. “Our Partners-in-Open-Development provides a great opportunity for innovators to develop technology for a smarter world. With this program, we encourage developers across the globe to join in to create new products that introduce real-world IoT applications that will touch so many parts of our lives. This is the first step toward expanding the accessibility of an ecosystem that will foster a new generation of innovation.”

As part of the POD program, Rambus has identified four key verticals to accelerate and amplify discovery of smart applications, which include cities, transportation, manufacturing and medical. To learn more about Rambus, lensless smart sensors and the Partners-in-Open-Development program, visit rambus.com/smartsensors.

Follow Rambus
Company website: rambus.com
Rambus blog: rambusblog.com
Twitter: @rambusinc
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/rambus
Facebook: www.facebook.com/RambusInc

About Rambus Inc.
Rambus brings invention to market. Our customizable IP cores, architecture licenses, tools, services, and training improve the competitive advantage of our customer’s products while accelerating their time-to-market. Rambus products and innovations capture, secure and move data. For more information, visit rambus.com.