Qualcomm and Ams to Develop VCSEL Enabled 3D Facial Recognition

“We want to enable fast time-to-commercialization and broad-based availability of high quality 3D sensing solutions for Android-based smartphones and mobile devices, and this is a step towards this goal.” – Alexander Everke, CEO, Ams

Qualcomm has teamed up with Austrian sensor maker Ams to develop a 3D camera solution for mobile devices.

Ams has a wide product portfolio, spanning CMOS sensors, Time-of-Flight sensors, noise cancelling audio solutions, and ASICs. But its collaborative work with Qualcomm will revolve primarily around its IR pattern technology and its VCSEL technology – the latter being the same kind of laser technology underlying the 3D face imaging system used in Apple’s latest iPhones.

For its part, Qualcomm will bring to the table its Snapdragon mobile platforms, with the companies proclaiming in a press release that their goal is “to create a reference design for a cost-attractive, active 3D stereo camera solution for Android-based mobile phones.”

Commenting further on the collaboration, Ams CEO Alexander Everke said, “We want to enable fast time-to-commercialization and broad-based availability of high quality 3D sensing solutions for Android-based smartphones and mobile devices, and this is a step towards this goal.”

The partnership’s announcement offers the latest indication of Qualcomm’s intensifying focus on imaging technology for mobile devices, with the company having launched an Augmented Reality- and Virtual Reality-focused chip platform called Snapdragon XR1 in the spring of this year.

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(Originally posted on Mobile ID World)