Medical imaging
ams OSRAM X-ray sensors and nano-scale cameras deliver precision and image quality with cutting-edge performance helping medical professionals to see deep inside the human body.
Our medical imaging solutions
Leading in medical imaging detectors
ams OSRAM is a leader in computed tomography and digital X-ray sensors for medical imaging. We design and manufacture unique medical image sensing solutions which offer outstanding precision, high acquisition speeds, low noise and ultra-low power consumption. This enables manufacturers of scanning equipment to produce sharp images while exposing patients to the lowest possible doses of radiation.
A CT scanner is one of the most powerful diagnostic tools available to medical practitioners because of its very fast acquisition times for 3D images of various parts of the human body: bones, skeletal muscles, head, heart or lungs. It achieves a high contrast ratio between bone, tissue, blood vessels and other parts of the body.
A key component of a modern multi-slice CT scanner is the detector array: this senses the X-ray radiation which is partially attenuated by tissues in the patient’s body and converts them into a digital signal. The design of the detector array affects its operating characteristics, such as sensitivity, noise, resolution and speed.
ams OSRAM takes its leading image sensing expertise forward to achieve an unprecedented level of image quality at lowest possible doses, also referred to as photon counting technology. We offer a wide range of high-performance solutions addressing both three-side and four-side buttable options, exhibiting low noise, ultra-low power, and high readout speeds.
Such solutions range from stand-alone high channel count analog-to-digital converters allowing maximum flexibility for our customers, to highly integrated ICs combining both photodiode arrays and readout circuits in a single silicon package, driving ultimate performance. Fast acquisition speeds and best in class signal-to-noise ratio allows to lower the exposed X-ray radiation doses to its physical limits, which translates for the patients into significant less stress on their body.
In order to achieve best possible image quality ams OSRAM provides complementing portfolio options for precise patient positioning adjustments. Besides narrow focus laser and LED products, or fully integrated projection solutions for optical guidance and alignment for best-possible patient placement. ams OSRAM offers precise linear and angular position sensors to steer the supporting mechanical equipment with highest positioning accuracy. Supporting 2D or 3D camera based vision solutions or time-of-flight based 3D sensing might be considered to enable algorithmic compensation of small movements by the patient while being CT scanned. This is important because patients who are not positioned correctly can cause difficulties in the distribution of the radiation dose and resulting image quality might not be optimal.
Getting the most out of digital x-ray
Digital X-ray equipment is widely used in general radiography, mammography and interventional radiology. The flat panel detectors (FPDs) integrated in this equipment must produce high-resolution images with low noise.
ams OSRAM solutions for these FPDs help digital X-ray equipment manufacturers to produce accurate images and to increase scanning rates. The ams OSRAM portfolio includes high-speed readout circuits and gate drivers optimized for line times as low as 15µs. These devices help to increase the frame rate in dynamic X-ray applications such as fluoroscopy.
For static applications using portable and battery-powered FPDs, ams OSRAM offers readout circuits which dissipate as little as 1.1mW per channel, allowing radiologists to perform more X-ray exposures before the detector has to be recharged.
FPDs are the core of any digital X-ray system. They collect the radiation generated by the X-ray tube and filtered through the patient’s body. They deliver the output image that radiologists examine to formulate their diagnosis.
ams OSRAM draws on its extensive know-how in integrated circuit design, its expertise in semiconductor fabrication processes and its familiarity with the medical imaging equipment ecosystem to offer state-of-the-art readout integrated circuits and gate drivers, both as standard products and as customized devices for specific application needs.
The latest ROIC is the digital X-ray sensor AS5850B: a 16-bit, 256-channel low-noise charge-to-digital converter suitable for use in most digital X-ray systems. The high degree of programmability enables system performance optimization in a wide range of applications. The combination of fast speed, low noise and low power consumption maximizes the image quality and minimizes the patient’s exposure to radiation, while reducing time to market.
For exact patient positioning, ams OSRAM's laser modules can be used to provide the user with an optical visualization of the patient's position.
Enabling endoscopy innovation
An endoscope inserted into the body enables a medical practitioner to examine the inside of the patient. The camera at the tip of the endoscope must be as small as possible, to minimize the patient’s discomfort.
Endoscopes equipped with an ams OSRAM NanEye miniature camera module can have a remarkably narrow tip: the area of a NanEye module – a complete digital camera-on-chip including its required interfaces for system integration – is <0.5mm2. ams OSRAM also offers expertise in integration to help medical equipment manufacturers to develop miniature cameras for micro-invasive surgery. Combinations of the integrated digital camera with right-fit illumination solutions are made possible by our advanced portfolio.
Manufacturers may also draw on ams OSRAM’s expertise in the integration of wafer-level optics, which enables the production of a complete endoscopy system-in-package (SiP) solution. Such SiP solutions offer the most effective way to reduce both the size and cost of an endoscope.
Advanced optical sensors, such as multi-channel spectral sensors across a wide spectral range, from ultraviolet (UV) to short-wave infrared (SWIR), paired with the required light emitter open new opportunities for innovative on-the-fly tissue analysis. This could for example help to detect possible cancer earlier with a single diagnostic step.