SCIVAX and Shin-Etsu Chemical Have Jointly Developed Amtelus®, the World’s Smallest Light Source Device for 3D Sensors

World’s smallest light source module Amtelus® (Photo: Business Wire)

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SCIVAX Corporation (Head Office: Kawasaki, Japan; President: Satoru Tanaka; hereinafter, “SCIVAX”) and Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. (Head Office: Tokyo; President: Yasuhiko Saitoh; hereinafter, “Shin-Etsu Chemical”) have jointly developed Amtelus, a light source device for 3D sensors and technology for its mass-production. The delivery of evaluation samples of Amtelus will start in November 2024, and the sales of the products will be conducted by Shin-Etsu Chemical.

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SCIVAX has so far sold Platanus, an optical lens that diffuses and radiates light uniformly, as the 3D sensor light sources that are used in automotive and other various applications, contributing to improving sensor performance. Meanwhile, in recent years, the areas in which 3D sensing technology is utilized have grown wider, calling for light source devices to be more highly integrated and to have higher performance. However, it was difficult to reduce footprint using the conventional cavity structure, which posed one of the major unsolved issues.

To solve this issue, Shin-Etsu Chemical has developed a high-hardness material that can be processed by dicing, and that has both necessary optical properties and a sealing capability to protect devices. Using this material, SCIVAX has successfully developed Amtelus, the world’s smallest light source device that incorporates the functions of Platanus. This device has achieved a significantly smaller size compared with conventional devices having a mounting area of 1 mmor less, 10 times smaller than conventional devices, and with half or less of the thickness.

The main features of Amtelus are as follows:

• Minimum size It minimizes the mounting area of a light-emitting device, enabling its application in devices such as AR glasses and smartphones, for which installation has been difficult. In addition, using multiple Amtelus modules can achieve more precise sensing.
• Flexibility of light emission The optical lens Platanus can provide various types of irradiation fields with a high degree of design flexibility, enabling various types of irradiation, such as over a wide range of 140 degrees or more or with a high aspect ratio (120 deg × 30 deg). By using this technology, Amtelus modules with various irradiation fields can be designed according to customers’ requests.
• Cost competitiveness By utilizing advanced nanoimprint mass production technology, the lenses are integrated with the light source in a resin package, which provides higher cost competitiveness compared to conventional products.

Shin-Etsu Chemical and SCIVAX are considering expanding the applications of this technology in the future to various fields, such as next-generation life science, mainly vital sensors.

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