€15m for European image sensor breakthrough

eenewseurope.com, May. 07, 2025 – 

A spin out of the imec R&D research lab has raised €15m and emerged from stealth to dramatically improve image sensor technology.

Eyeo in the Netherlands has developed a way around needing filters in image sensors to capture different frequencies of light in a pixel array. Instead the company has developed a technique for building vertical waveguides that split the light on the way down. This allows image sensors to be smaller, lower power and higher resolution as all the energy of the light is available, rather than being absorbed by the red, green and blue filters.

“With more light you can use more light to make everything smaller for the same performance in AR, VR, smartphone, webcams,” Jeroen Hoet, CEO and co-founder of Eyeo tells eeNews Europe. “And then there are customers looking at 3x faster, 3x improved performance, for industrial, high end smartphones, drones.”

Last year was the 50^th anniversary of the development of image filters for sensors, and the technology hasn’t essentially changed since then, he says.

“My vision is this becomes a significant player as an image sensor company and that’s a good thing for Europe as there is not much activity in this area. The region deserves to have a leading position in image sensing and the technology can definitely justify that ambition,” he said.

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