Wide-angle camera using achromatic doublet prism array and method of manufacturing the same

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9902120-B2
Application number	US-201514616925-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 9, 2015
Priority date	Feb 9, 2015
Publication date	Feb 27, 2018
Grant date	Feb 27, 2018

Abstract

A wide-angle camera and fabrication method thereof includes a sensor with a plurality of pixel sub-arrays and an array of optical elements on a first side of a substrate. Each of the optical elements is capable of forming an image from a field of view onto a different one of the pixel sub-arrays. The wide-angle camera also includes an array of achromatic doublet prisms on a second side of the substrate, where each of the achromatic doublet prisms is aligned to provide a viewing angle with a different one of the optical elements. The sensor captures a wide-angle field of view while having a compact format.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for manufacturing an achromatic doublet prism array having a N×M number of sections, the method comprising:
forming, onto a substrate surface, an array of first prisms each located in one of the N×M sections and composed of a first material; and
forming, atop the array of first prisms, an array of second prisms, each located in one of the N×M sections, by disposing, on the substrate surface, a continuous layer of a second material, different from the first material, that covers each first prism, each second prism corresponding to a region of the continuous layer above a respective first prism,
the step of forming the array of second prisms includes molding the continuous layer by using a second mold, the array of second prisms having (i) a single second area that exceeds an area of the array of first prisms in a plane parallel to the substrate surface and (ii) a plurality of regions each corresponding to a respective one of the first prisms.

2. The method of claim 1 , the step of forming the array of first prisms comprises depositing and curing an ultraviolet (UV) curable resin within a first mold.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, between the steps of forming the array of first prisms and forming the array of second prisms, removing a first mold used during the step of forming the array of first prisms and depositing the second material into the second mold.

4. The method of claim 1 , the step of forming the array of second prisms comprising depositing and curing an ultraviolet curable resin within the second mold.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising stacking the formed first and second prism arrays, and the substrate, onto a lens array assembly.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising dicing the stacked assembly to form individual camera assembly arrays.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising generating a first mold configured according to a desired formation of the array of first prisms.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising generating a second mold configured to a desired formation of the array of second prisms.

9. The method of claim 1 , the step of forming the array of first prisms being completed using a first mold having a first area corresponding to the formation of the first prisms, the first area being present in only a portion of the sections of the achromatic doublet prism array.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the first area is present in only the outer sections of the achromatic doublet prism array such that no first prism is formed in the central sections.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first material has an Abbe number that is lower than the Abbe number of the second material.

Assignees

• Omnivision Tech Inc

Inventors

• Chen Wei Ping
• Deng Jau Jan
• Wan Tsung Wei
• Yin Chuen Yi

Classifications

• B29K2995/0026

  Transparent · CPC title

• G02B5/045

  Prism arrays · CPC title

• G02B3/0031

  Replication or moulding, e.g. hot embossing, UV-casting, injection moulding · CPC title

• G02B3/0056

  arranged along two different directions in a plane, e.g. honeycomb arrangement of lenses (G02B3/0043 takes precedence; miniaturised objectives for electronic devices employing wafer level optics G02B13/0085) · CPC title

• G02B13/0065

  having a beam-folding prism or mirror · CPC title