Why are more and more companies emerging with SPAD sensors?
Shahida Imani: Over the past few years, we’ve seen a dramatic shift in how industries view SPAD sensors. Historically, SPADs were primarily research tools, confined to specialised labs. That’s changed because we can now fabricate high-density SPAD arrays using standard CMOS processes, making them scalable and cost-effective for commercial deployment. This has opened the door for widespread use in time-resolved imaging applications – things like LiDAR for autonomous vehicles, fluorescence lifetime imaging for biomedical diagnostics, and high-precision depth sensing in industrial environments. What’s particularly exciting is the opportunity to go beyond simply capturing photons, and to interpret them in real time. The ability to extract meaningful insights at the photon level is fuelling a wave of innovation, and machine vision is set to be one of the biggest beneficiaries, particularly when it comes to challenging conditions, like low light, high motion, or visually complex environments.
What SPAD products does Singular Photonics have?
We’ve built a vertically integrated portfolio designed to meet specific market needs. Our Sirona SPAD array is optimised for life sciences, delivering low dark counts and built-in lifetime analytics. For industrial and 3D sensing, we have Andarta, which brings sub nanosecond timing capability with on chip autocorrelation compute and high frame rates. And soon, we’ll be introducing Litavis, a next-generation SPAD sensor with multi modal capabilities from intensity imaging to tailored on-chip histogram modes. This is where machine vision truly evolves: integrating on-chip inference so systems can analyse and act on photon data immediately, without requiring external computational resources.
What can we expect next?
SI: We see the future of SPADs as being deeply intertwined with intelligent computation. Our R&D is focused on enabling and optimising more and more compute functions tailored to photon processing, allowing data to be classified and acted on as it’s captured. Our sensors incorporate multi modal capabilities, which will give machines a richer, more adaptive understanding of their environment. Beyond that, we’re designing SPAD sensors that will be transformational for industries like biotech, robotics, and aerospace. In short, SPADs are evolving from pure sensors into intelligent vision platforms.
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