The CMOS sensor used for the principle demonstration can be regarded as a success, and it proves with practical actions that in addition to the complex process and expensive CCD optical sensor technology route, people can also have another high-performance optical sensor technology route.

Turning his gaze to the humble "digital camera" on the table again, the professor's heart was actually full of all kinds of snickering joy, and this feeling was really satisfying.

"With this engineering prototype development, we can almost confirm that it is highly feasible to make a pattern sensor using the CMOS process, which is now only black and white pixels, but it can be upgraded for color sensors. ”

Even though the sensor is black and white, and the pixel is low, the final output is blurry, but at least the picture was successfully captured, and this alone makes the previous investment worth it.

Professor Bai affirmed the feasibility of the design scheme, and proposed that a more complete color sensor could be further developed, after all, this is already the 80s, color photos are the mainstream, black and white, unless it is deliberately the pursuit of retro, otherwise few people can accept.

"No, we don't need to make color sensors yet, even if we can make it, it will be difficult to bring it to the market in a short period of time, and the current film cameras have not yet reached the end of their life, so we still make simple black and white sensors first. ”

First make a black and white pixel graphics sensor, this is not that Wang Zhengguo has nothing to do, but the products that plan to use CMOS sensors do not need color, and it is completely unnecessary.

"At present, we are focusing our research on the small size of the sensor, and we also want to reduce the production cost as much as possible, improve the continuous service life, and reduce the power consumption. ”

The requirements are a bit strange, and even many places are contrary to the requirements of digital camera sensors, such as the miniaturization of sensors requested by Wang Zhengguo, which is simply incomprehensible.

The optical sensor used in the camera has always been the bigger the better, the 120-format and 135-format controversy in the era of film cameras, why the 120-format output of the photo effect is better, that is, because of the large format area of others.

In the era of digital cameras, M4/3, APS, and full-frame, the above three small to large represent the size of the sensor, which can also be regarded as a ranking of imaging quality.

Although the so-called "bottom level crushes people" is somewhat one-sided, it can also be regarded as a universal truth to a certain extent, as for the camera used by smart phones later, the sensor area is not a level, from this point of view, the effect of mobile phone photography is far from reaching the level of digital cameras.

The sensor size of the camera is as large as possible, but now Wang Zhengguo is asking to make it smaller, which is the first thing that makes people feel weird.

But the really strange thing is not only that, about Wang Zhengguo's request to improve the continuous working life of the sensor, which is also confusing.

For cameras, the sensor does not work for too long, usually a few minutes, at most an hour or two, if you want more, it is not possible, after all, photography is the need for a certain period of time, plus the power supply of the digital camera is not long, one or two hours to the sky.

For various reasons, the so-called long-term use of the sensor requirement, which seems a bit out of place, as the leader of the COMS sensor research and development project, Professor Bai is a little confused about Wang Zhengguo's special requirements.

If I could, I would like to know more about it, which will be more helpful for my subsequent development work. ”

Through Wang Zhengguo's request, in fact, I can more or less guess that the CMOS sensor to be made this time may not be for the camera, but if there is any place to use the CMOS sensor, I really can't think of it for a while.

Speaking of Wang Zhengguo, Professor Bai, as the general person in charge of the CMOS sensor project, is of course qualified to know some more specific situations, including Ni Guangnan next to him, because the next project to be done is really an original design in the 80s.

"I actually made such a request because I plan to use CMOS sensors to make mice, which is an indispensable and key part of Yaoguang's electronic technology system in the future. ”

In front of everyone, the plan that broke out this time caught people off guard, and for a while no one could even see what Wang Zhengguo's idea was.

What else can there be between the two, shouldn't it!

Professor Bai Siwen has never heard of the mouse, the DOS system relies on the keyboard to input commands, and does not need a mouse, to be precise, the mouse is born with the graphics operating system, and the computer that uses the graphics operating system will use the mouse.

Ni Guangnan has roughly heard of such a mouse, but that was when he was in Canada, and he still heard of the English name Mouse, a computer input device that looks like a mouse, so he directly uses Mouse (mouse) to call it abroad, but it is the first time I have heard of it in China.

So much so that Ni Guangnan, who was at the beginning, didn't react yet, the definition of mouse in foreign countries is a mechanical product, which is completely incompatible with CMOS optical sensors.

Some suspicions: "Mouse? Are you talking about the input device of the computer, something called Mouse abroad?"

Sure enough, he is a big bull who has returned from studying abroad, and he likes to work with such high-end talents, at least the communication will not give people a deep sense of powerlessness, Wang Zhengguo is sure.

"That's right, I'm talking about Mouse, and I translate it as mouse in China. As for why I would associate it with a CMOS sensor, it makes sense. Before that, we can talk about the shortcomings of the traditional mechanical mouse, which will be the ultimate meaning of the existence of our optical mouse. ”

The originator of the mouse appeared in 1968, developed in California by American scientist Douglas Engelbart, and has existed as a computer input device ever since.

The original mouse developed in 1968 could only exist as a technical verification product, and it was not really mass-produced, after all, there was no graphics operating system at that time, and there was no demand in the market.

It was also after the mouse was officially introduced into the PC field that the corresponding technology was innovated, and in 1968, the principle of relying on different resistors to locate the technical demonstrators was completely abandoned, and it was replaced by a purely digital "mechanical mouse".

The mechanical mouse is one of the heroes of the first generation of graphics operating system, and it gradually matured in the eighties, until the arrival of the new century, which gradually withdrew from the historical stage, relying on a ball to locate the mouse back and forth gradually faded out of history.

Wang Zhengguo rarely touched the mechanical mouse when he used the computer on the upper plane, and the only thing that impressed her was that when she was a child, she took off the positioning ball of the mouse, and the guy the size of a thumb nail was round and popular.

As for the tragic situation of losing the positioning balls and being beaten by adults later, it's really ......

The mechanical mouse has made great contributions to the development of the graphics operating system, but the reason why it gradually faded out of history is naturally for a reason, and its inherent shortcomings are still many.

After the mechanical mouse is used for a period of time, the two hinges will be covered with dirt and affect the light passing, and there will be problems such as insensitive movement and cursor blocking, so it is necessary to clean the positioning ball after two or three days of use.

This is why Wang Zhengguo was able to easily remove the positioning ball when he was a child, which was caused by the inherent defects of the mouse, and the positioning ball of the mouse must be easy to disassemble.

In addition, with the extension of the use of the mechanical mouse, the mouse will not be able to maintain the original good working condition, the response sensitivity and positioning accuracy will be reduced, and the durability is not satisfactory.

The total reason is that the use of mechanical mice is not completely satisfactory, and then a near-perfect optical mouse was born, and now, what Wang Zhengguo has to do is to make the optical mouse in advance.

This will be Wang Zhengguo's optoelectronic imperial capital's first product that combines optics and electronics technologies, which does not seem to be a technology that bombs the sky, but the changes it brings must be huge.

"I think so, our optical mouse through the light-emitting diode illuminated to the working plane of the bottom of the mouse, and then through our CMOS graphics sensor for high-speed continuous shooting, the continuous shooting of the displacement photos will always have the same features, by comparing the position change information of these feature points, you can judge the direction and distance of the mouse. ”

Wang Zhengguo's optical mouse scheme is a design scheme launched by Agilent in 1999, and it is also the existence of the mechanical mouse later, which was released fifteen years in advance, and the effect is absolutely shocking.

It doesn't even take too much thought to determine that this technical route is indeed feasible, Ni Guangnan knows that the future of Yaoguang Electronics is to take the route of the graphics operating system, and understands that the mouse is indispensable, but he didn't expect Wang Zhengguo to be so obsessed with new technologies that he directly re-clicked the mouse technology route.

But.... This feeling is really good, he Ni Guangnan gave up Canada's high salary to return to China, what he did was not to be able to lead the country to make world-class electronic airliner products, but he didn't expect to just arrive at Yaoguang Electronics, and he encountered high-end technology such as the optical mouse project.

"The technology is feasible, and from the technical route just mentioned, it should be able to overcome the inherent problems of mechanical mice, and it should be just around the corner to become a mouse without defects, but I'm afraid that the cost of this thing will be very high. ”

The optical mouse should use the CMOS graphics sensor to take pictures, and a series of chips should be used to process high-speed continuous photos at high speed, analyze and calculate the displacement direction and speed of the mouse, and these requirements will be solved after 2000, and the cost will not be too high, but eighty years......

First of all, it was not difficult to make this kind of optical mouse in the eighties, but the cost was definitely not low, and the hardware cost was much higher than that of a traditional mechanical mouse.

To take the simplest example, in fact, as early as 81, Xerox, the earliest developer of the graphics operating system, upgraded its Alto workstation mouse and launched the most original optical mouse, which cost as much as $100.

Xerox's optical mouse has a problem with the technical route, it does not obtain mouse displacement data by taking pictures at high speed and analyzing the image of the photo, Xerox uses X/Y diode and precision grid reflector technology, which is a bit of a trick.

Although it can greatly improve the accuracy of mouse positioning, Xerox's technical route requires a special precision mesh reflector, which is not to mention heavy, and the grid is also easy to wear.

What's more, this thing can only move perpendicular to the grid, which means it can only move up and down/left and right, and you want to move diagonally? Sorry, I can't recognize it.

Even if it is such a strange experimental product, Xerox has to sell it for 100 dollars, but the mechanical mouse of the same period only needs more than 20 dollars, and the gap between the two is indeed not small.

There is no need for high-speed continuous shooting, and there is no need to analyze pictures and other functions, such an optical mouse is a hundred dollars, think of a photographic optical mouse that needs to process a large amount of data, the cost will have to be doubled.

Fortunately, Wang Zhengguo has long been prepared for this problem: "That's right, I don't expect this cost to be low, as far as our domestic production cost is concerned, it is absolutely impossible to be less than 500 yuan, even in the United States, at least the price must be set above 200 US dollars to be considered appropriate." ”

This is almost ten times that of a mechanical mouse, anyway, Wang Zhengguo thinks about it himself and feels a little too black, but now the problem is here, the production cost is indeed too high, and the only possibility in the eighties is to increase the cost if you want to produce large-scale sales of products after 2000.

Fortunately, this cost is not without gain, just the high-precision positioning advantages it brings are not much to say, plus it does not need to be as expensive as a mechanical mouse, and there is no need to clean the trackball at two ends in three days, as a high-end product, the market must still exist.

Ni Guangnan is still a little stunned about the optical mouse that costs up to 200 dollars, this thing is too expensive, if he is allowed to buy this luxury, it will definitely be a pain in the flesh.

"Some of them are too expensive, and I don't know if they can be recognized by the market, although it has excellent performance and can't even find any defects, but I just ....."

Unexpectedly, the chief hardware engineer of Yaoguang Electronics was distressed about the money, Wang Zhengguo suddenly laughed, this is right, he finally looks like a normal person, at least not a perfect person.

Explaining: "In the future, most of the users who can use the graphics operating system are still enterprise-level users, and the average individual user does not have a graphics operating system available. In the face of enterprise-level users, they want efficiency, not a device purchase of one or two hundred dollars. ”

The graphical operating system of the 80s has been formed, Apple's Mac computer is equipped with a graphics operating system, but it is more like a workstation in terms of positioning, and most of the other graphics operating systems of the same era are also installed on workstations because they eat more computer performance.

Since it is a workstation, it must exist as a commercial equipment, most of which are used to process graphic data, such as CAD/CAM, animation special effects, these two-dimensional or three-dimensional graphic design fields have extremely high requirements for work equipment, and a high-precision mouse can do twice the result with half the effort.

To put it mildly, as long as the optical mouse can be made, even if the price is set at 300 US dollars, these large commercial customers still won't even blink their eyes, as for the field of personal consumption, being able to spend money on computers with image operating systems in the eighties must not be the main ones who lack money.

After some explanation, I finally figured it out: "It turned out to be positioned in the enterprise market, then I have nothing to worry about, as long as we can ensure the balance of investment and income of the project, we must stick to the optical mouse technology." ”

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