THE high price of cameras has previously been blamed for the fact that videoconferencing has failed to take off. But an American company is now offering a 鈥減lug-and-play鈥� colour camera attachment for PCs for just $267, which is a third the price of previous devices.
American manufacturer Vivitar is marketing the camera, but the crucial component is a colour camera chip made by VLSI Vision of Edinburgh.
The spread of multimedia computers and rapid advances in data compression make video images easy to send over computer networks and phone lines. However, video conferencing has not caught on because relatively few people have the cameras necessary to send images. Many observers blame slow sales on the cost of colour cameras and the complexity of operating them. The Vivitar camera 鈥渟hould kick the market up鈥�, says Don Lake, North American general manager for VLSI Vision.
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VLSI Vision first combined sensing elements with processing electronics three years ago in a low-resolution monochrome 鈥渃amera on a chip鈥� (Technology, 19 June 1993). These chips now sell in bulk for $10 each. Tyco Toys uses one in a $100 toy video camera announced last month.
Like the charge-coupled device sensors in standard video cameras, the camera chips sense light by accumulating charges in an array of elements on the chip surface. But CCDs pass this charge from cell to cell until it reaches the edge of the array, and this requires special processing of the semiconductor material to minimise the loss of charge as it passes through dozens or even hundreds of cells. The new chips have a readout circuit next to each element, so they do not require special processing, and can be made on the same fabrication equipment as standard computer chips.
Prices of the most sophisticated video cameras may also be coming down later this year, when a new generation of imaging chips 鈥� originally developed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory 鈥� is launched by spin-off company Photobit.
Photobit鈥檚 chips are similar to the VLSI Vision devices but have an amplifier circuit built into each picture element to improve the picture quality. Photobit has development contracts with 10 potential customers. Prices are expected to be below $100.
