Apple acquires Israeli DSLR-quality camera technology company LinX

Apple Inc. yesterday acquired Israeli DSLR-quality camera technology company LinX Computational Imaging Ltd.

The LinX acquisition is valued at around $20 million according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported, citing sources familiar with discussions between the two.

LinX was founded in 2011 by Ziv Attar, an ex senior optics specialist at Israeli defence company Rafael Advanced Defence Systems Ltd, and Andrey Tovchigrechko an ex algorithm developer at Samsung Electronics.

LinX has developed miniature multi-aperture cameras designed for mobile devices. The camera modules are nearly half the height of a standard mobile camera and are capable of creating stunning color images and high accuracy depth maps.

The engineers at LinX have solved all problems related with combining multiple images captured from different points in space such as registration errors and occlusion related artifacts which are seen on competing technologies.

The LinX cameras are artifact-free, even when objects appear at very short range.

With leading partners, LinX has developed a variety of products ranging from arrays of two, three, and four cameras in various configurations and sizes, some with autofocus and others without. The technology is ready for integration into the current generation mobile devices.

Apple has in the recent past acquired many Israeli companies and now has the largest research and development hub outside of the US with over 700 employees, a majority of whom have been transferred from its local acquisitions.

Apple carried out its first acquisition in Israel in 2012 when it bought flash storage technology company Anobit in a reported $500-million deal. (See: Apple acquires Israel's flash storage firm Anobit for around $500 mn)  and acquired 3D-sensing chip maker PrimeSense Ltd in 2013.