A few months ago, Samsung introduced the industry’s first 64MP camera sensor for smartphones, something which is expected to come with the Galaxy A70s. Now the South Korean manufacturer has announced that it has debuted the world’s first 108MP smartphone camera sensor – Samsung ISOCELL Bright HMX, which has been made in partnership with Xiaomi. The latest news comes just days after Xiaomi disclosed that there will soon be 108MP camera sensor (made by Samsung) in its smartphones.
The new ISOCELL Bright HMX sensor will be able to capture 108-megapixel grade photos with a Resolution of 12032×9024 pixels. The sensor will still come with a 0.8-micrometre (μm) Pixel size, same as its 64MP predecessor.
However, it will have an increased sensor size of 1/1.33-inch. The increased sensor size will help the camera extract more light under any circumstances and will this be able to perform better in low light conditions.
There’s a new Smart ISO technology which the sensor can employ to switch to a lower ISO in well-lit environments or to a higher ISO in darker conditions with a reduced level of noise. It uses Samsung’s Tetracell technology pixel-bins several images and merges them to produce a 27MP picture. The Samsung HMX sensor can also record videos with 6K resolution (6016 x 3384 pixels) at 30 frames per second.
Samsung Electronics Sensor Business VP, Yongin Park commented by saying “Samsung is continuously pushing for innovations in pixel and logic technologies to engineer our ISOCELL image Sensors to capture the world as close to how our eyes perceive them. Through close collaboration with Xiaomi, ISOCELL Bright HMX is the first mobile image sensor to pack over 100 million pixels and delivers unparalleled colour reproduction and stunning detail with advanced Tetracell and ISOCELL Plus technology”.
Speaking about the announcement, Xiaomi Co-founder and President, Lin Bin said “For ISOCELL Bright HMX, Xiaomi and Samsung have worked closely together from the early conceptual stage to production that has resulted in a groundbreaking 108Mp image sensor. We are very pleased that picture resolutions previously available only in a few top-tier DSLR cameras can now be designed into smartphones. As we continue our partnership, we anticipate bringing not only new mobile camera experiences but also a platform through which our users can create unique content”.
Samsung ISOCELL Bright HMX will be mass-produced later this month and we can expect a smartphone bearing the camera sensor some time at the end of 2019.