NEWS JULY 2011
CML's newest SMA Lens Actuator Technology licensee will be first to market with Optical Image Stabilization solution
Cambridge, England July 7th 2011. Cambridge Mechatronics Ltd. (CML), today announced that Actuator Solutions GmbH (ASG) of Treuchtlingen, Germany has become the latest licensee of CML's Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) based lens actuator technology. However ASG will be the first company to invest in a fully automated manufacturing capability to deliver lens actuators for both the Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and Auto-Focus (A-F) functions in smart phone cameras.
ASG is jointly owned by SAES Getters (BIT: SG), the Italian world leader in the production of SMA metal, wire and devices and Alfmeier Prazision (Alfmeier), a German company which is the world’s highest volume manufacturer of SMA-based actuators for automotive applications.
CML and SAES Getters have been close partners since 2009 collectively promoting and supplying SMA lens actuator technology to the global miniature camera industry and its associated supply chain. Alfmeier, a long term strategic collaborator of SAES Getters, joined the cooperation in a technical capacity in 2010. SAES Getters and Alfmeier decided to form and invest in ASG after having jointly established that there was a large and latent demand for miniature OIS-enabled cameras coming from the leading smart-phone vendors. There is also a growing body of industry opinion that CML’s SMA-based OIS actuator solution is the best positioned to address the smart phone industry’s requirements for performance, form-factor and cost. ASG also has plans to address other markets with SMA-based actuators.
The requirement for miniature OIS is being driven by consumers who wish for their smart phone cameras to replicate the image quality of the larger Digital Still Cameras. Smart phones already contain high resolution cameras with as many as 8 Megapixels aided by Continuous Auto-Focus (CAF) mechanisms. However smart phones are still criticized for their poor performance in lower light conditions and for their extremely shaky video recordings. Miniature OIS will help to virtually eradicate both weaknesses as well as enabling smart phone camera pixel counts to rise to 16 million and higher.
ASG and CML are already engaged with several of the world’s leading smart phone vendors and their respective camera suppliers. High volume shipments of SMA OIS+A-F actuators are expected to begin in the second half of 2012.
"We feel very privileged to be partners with ASG" said Simon Calder, CEO of CML. "The resultant combination of SAES Getters and Alfmeier’s experience in SMA actuator manufacturing will greatly accelerate the development and introduction of SMA-based OIS."
"OIS is the killer application for SMA-based actuation” said Markus Koepfer, CEO of ASG "The miniature OIS required for smart phones necessitates an actuator of such combined smallness and strength that we believe it can only be provided by using SMA technology."