SiOnyx boosts CMOS sensor team, opens West Coast office

JANUARY 28, 2009--SiOnyx (Beverly, MA, USA; www.sionyx.com), a developer of shallow-junction photonics technologies, has added several image-sensor scientists and engineers to its team and opened an engineering office in Beaverton, OR, USA.

Homayoon Haddad, previously vice president of advanced sensor and pixel development for MagnaChip Semiconductor, has joined SiOnyx as vice president of device engineering. Leading the company's West Coast team, Haddad is responsible for next-generation shallow junction detector and image-sensor development. During his tenure with MagnaChip, Haddad managed the development of 2.2-, 1.7-, and 1.4-µm pixel technologies and released the first 1.75-µm color BSI sensor in 2007. Prior to MagnaChip, he spent more than 20 years at Hewlett Packard and Agilent where he held a variety of technology management and engineering roles.

Haddad's team consists of engineers and scientists with decades of experience in the design, development, and mass production of image sensors from companies such as Micron, HP, Agilent, Avago, and Texas Instruments.

SiOnyx is producing devices that reportedly represent the first and only known, low-cost, highly scalable platform for hyperspectral imaging. The company says its implant method is compatible with established semiconductor manufacturing processes and introduces no new material.

"Black silicon offers incredible promise in the sensing and detecting markets where engineers have suffered for decades with the limited response of silicon," says Haddad. "It's 100 times more sensitive to light and incredibly thin," which enables the company to develop smaller, less costly, high-performance imaging systems.