WiseEye AI is Driving AI Innovations for Battery-Powered Endpoint Applications
TAINAN, Taiwan, April 05, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Himax Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: HIMX) (“Himax” or “Company”), a leading supplier and fabless manufacturer of display drivers and other semiconductor products, today announced its participation in the embedded world Exhibition&Conference held in Nuremberg from April 9 to 11, 2024. Himax will showcase its WiseEyeTM applications and AI capabilities at the tinyML Pavilion booth, in collaboration with several ecosystem partners, through interactive demonstrations and expert-led discussions on-site. With Himax’s powerful AI and industry-leading ultralow power technology, battery powered endpoint AI devices can operate with a significantly extended battery life. The exhibition will feature a range of in-house solutions, such as the versatile WiseEye Modules for seamless plug-and-play integration, and WiseEye Vein, a groundbreaking highly-secure contactless palm vein authentication solution. Additional live demonstrations with ecosystem partners, including a thumb-sized AI vision module with Seeed Studio (“Seeed”), a smart rodent camera with Laiwa Communication Ltd. (“Laiwa”), and many others will also be on display.
During the event, Himax is partnering with the tinyML Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing ultralow power machine learning technologies for edge devices, to underscore the joint vision of harnessing tinyML technology to enable trillions of distributed intelligent devices seamlessly integrated into daily life, all while adhering to ultralow power constraints. At the forefront of this initiative is Himax’s WiseEye AI, which offers always-on tinyML AI solutions with renowned ultralow power consumption along with preeminent security and privacy protection. WiseEye’s versatility significantly benefits AI developers in prototyping and deploying inferences for endpoint AI devices, particularly those oriented towards battery-driven applications.
Amidst a world of exploding AI adoption, Himax has a steadfast commitment to advancing its AI capabilities, as evidenced by its successful integration into Dell notebooks and growing adoption in various IoT applications. Concurrently, Himax is expanding its vision-AI solutions across diverse domains. A pivotal strategy in broadening this AI market reach involves the introduction of a series of production-ready WiseEye Modules. Characterized by their ultralow power, compact form factor and universal interface, these modules offer a seamless plug-and-play experience with exceptional no-code/low-code AI capabilities. Equipped with a variety of pre-trained machine learning models which address specific use cases, AI developers can effortlessly and promptly program tailored inferences into the modules. As an illustration, the WiseEye Module has seen successful adoption in battery powered parking systems across various regions in Asia. With its pre-trained motion and occupancy detection AI, it streamlines vehicle billing processes, and, most importantly, the battery-powered design simplifies installation and maintenance effort compared to conventional wired solutions.
The exhibition will also feature a live demonstration of the WiseEye Vein Module, an ultralow power highly-secure palm vein authentication solution. Boasting exceptional AI capabilities and significantly lower power consumption, it distinguishes itself from expensive and power-intensive discrete embedded processor alternatives, which incur higher costs and greater power consumption while performing similar tasks. The palm vein authentication technology offers unparalleled security by leveraging unique vascular patterns housed inside the body, making forgery extremely challenging. The solution features a touchless and non-intrusive liveness check function, ensuring a healthy and hygienic user experience. Consequently, it emerges as a highly secure alternative for personal identification, suitable for door security, login authentication, and various other scenarios. In addition, the ultralow power WiseEye Vein Module consumes less than 12 milliwatts, merely a quarter of what competing solutions require, setting the stage to transform next-generation access control applications. This is achieved through compact, battery-powered devices offering exceptional accuracy and minimal power usage, while seamlessly blending into everyday life.
In yet another compelling showcase of smart city innovation at embedded world, Himax has teamed up with Laiwa to unveil an ultralow power Smart Rodent Camera, powered by Himax WiseEye. The camera, featuring proprietary AI inference with rodent motion detection, enables continuous 24/7 monitoring and detection capabilities, boasting years of battery life. The rodent motion detection specifically targets regions of interest (ROI) where rodent activity is detected, effectively minimizing common false alarms encountered in conventional solutions. It excels at accurately identifying rodents amidst various objects. Upon detecting a rodent, the camera swiftly activates, capturing snapshots, and engaging for precise analysis. Furthermore, the camera integrates NB-IoT or CAT-M1 mobile network modules enabling seamless picture storage through wireless connectivity, where data is transmitted to the cloud for comprehensive assessment. Additionally, the camera, featuring near-infrared (“NIR”) light spectrum, ensures clear imaging without disturbing rodents with flashes, facilitating proactive measures to deter wildlife damage. The versatile features and extended battery life of the smart camera solution make it ideal for various applications, including public buildings, residential areas, restaurants, hospitality, agriculture, food industry, just to name a few.
Himax invites all interested parties to stop by our exhibition booth at the tinyML Pavilion booth, at Hall 2, 2-338 to experience the Company’s industry-leading ultralow power AI technology. To schedule a meeting or booth tour, please contact Himax at: HX_WISEEYE@himax.com.tw
About Himax Technologies, Inc.
Himax Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: HIMX) is a leading global fabless semiconductor solution provider dedicated to display imaging processing technologies. The Company’s display driver ICs and timing controllers have been adopted at scale across multiple industries worldwide including TVs, PC monitors, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, automotive, ePaper devices, industrial displays, among others. As the global market share leader in automotive display technology, the Company offers innovative and comprehensive automotive IC solutions, including traditional driver ICs, advanced in-cell Touch and Display Driver Integration (TDDI), local dimming timing controllers (Local Dimming Tcon), Large Touch and Display Driver Integration (LTDI) and AMOLED display technologies. Himax is also a pioneer in tinyML visual-AI and optical technology related fields. The Company’s industry-leading WiseEyeTM Smart Sensing technology which incorporates Himax proprietary ultralow power AI processor, always-on CMOS image sensor, and CNN-based AI algorithm has been widely deployed in consumer electronics and AIoT related applications. While Himax optics technologies, such as diffractive wafer level optics, LCoS microdisplays and 3D sensing solutions, are critical for facilitating emerging AR/VR/metaverse technologies. Additionally, Himax designs and provides touch controllers, AMOLED ICs, LED drivers, EPD drivers, power management ICs, and CMOS image sensors for diverse display application coverage. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Tainan, Taiwan, Himax currently employs around 2,200 people from three Taiwan-based offices in Tainan, Hsinchu and Taipei and country offices in China, Korea, Japan, Germany, and the US. Himax has 2,772 patents granted and 398 patents pending approval worldwide as of March 31, 2024.
Forward Looking Statements
Factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those described in this conference call include, but are not limited to, the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Company’s business; general business and economic conditions and the state of the semiconductor industry; market acceptance and competitiveness of the driver and non-driver products developed by the Company; demand for end-use applications products; reliance on a small group of principal customers; the uncertainty of continued success in technological innovations; our ability to develop and protect our intellectual property; pricing pressures including declines in average selling prices; changes in customer order patterns; changes in estimated full-year effective tax rate; shortage in supply of key components; changes in environmental laws and regulations; changes in export license regulated by Export Administration Regulations (EAR); exchange rate fluctuations; regulatory approvals for further investments in our subsidiaries; our ability to collect accounts receivable and manage inventory and other risks described from time to time in the Company’s SEC filings, including those risks identified in the section entitled “Risk Factors” in its Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2023 filed with the SEC, as may be amended.
Company Contacts:
Eric Li, Chief IR/PR Officer
Himax Technologies, Inc.
Tel: +886-6-505-0880
Fax: +886-2-2314-0877
Email: hx_ir@himax.com.tw
www.himax.com.tw
Karen Tiao, Investor Relations
Himax Technologies, Inc.
Tel: +886-2-2370-3999
Fax: +886-2-2314-0877
Email: hx_ir@himax.com.tw
www.himax.com.tw
Mark Schwalenberg, Director
Investor Relations – US Representative
MZ North America
Tel: +1-312-261-6430
Email: HIMX@mzgroup.us
www.mzgroup.us