Are Apple custom chips produced in-house a game changer for cutting edge imaging technology?

Cupertino raises the stakes even higher on consumer gizmo’s.

“The Consumer Electronics Show (C.E.S) in Las Vegas this week is the gathering place for those who thrive on tech.” Sure is, but sometimes big stories get lost in a sea of gizmos.

If you are selling millions of devices or gadgets and you need a custom chip for that killer feature that sets the media world abuzz, you will probably go to Intel or Qualcomm. You would also have deep pockets but the stakes are just so big in the tech business.

Sarum was interested to read in the FT that in order to improve selfies on the iPhone, Apple came up with a custom display chip designed and developed in-house to light up the screen three times brighter than normal with their “Retina Flash“. How very Apple to have total control of their software as well as their hardware and probably build in architecture to provide an easy roll-out of those new big features in the future. Steve would be proud.

But forget kids and their selfies for a moment. Where do you start once you are past domestic gizmos? Medical, diagnostics, security military, microscopy, automation, space and we don’t know where you end. What a crowded space for getting advanced technology into small devices. Any of these could well grab the benefit that a custom chip could provide to really reach a new milestone. If you are pushing technology to limits, it might just make a big difference. But if you have not got the spending power of consumers throughout the world to provide payback, are these big enough blockbusters to justify the massive expenditure on a custom made chip? Even more so for early stage businesses.

The designer and developer of miniature laboratory quality mobile microscopes and imaging systems ioLight knows well the challenges in pushing the limits on standard components. Sarum is amazed by the ioLight product, which uses cutting edge optics, sensors processing to achieve traditional instrument quality on a wireless connected pocket microscope the size of a large phone. We think this technology translates into a massive range of applications in diagnostics, manufacturing and lots of other areas way outside of old fashioned microscopy.

ioLights’ stunning mobile images

Andrew Monk, co-founder of ioLight observes “Where you move to a custom chip or sensor, the stakes are suddenly so much higher. But the potential is there for massive developments for some amazing applications. I can see the day where some of our imaging technology will need custom chips, as just like Apple, we are pushing to limits.”

Sarum are expecting big things from ioLight in 2016. In the meantime we are glad to stick to our well engineered but somewhat lower tech hydraulic solutions for customers throughout the world. And play with our iPhones.