Combining ultra-high resolution with fast autofocus and unparalleled low-light performance, Samsung’s newest image sensor allows you to capture any moment in impeccable detail. Here’s how the ISOCELL HP1 is changing the mobile photography game.

200 Million Pixels

The ISOCELL HP1’s ultra-high resolution is a big leap forward for mobile photography. Based on Samsung’s 0.64μm pixels, the ISOCELL HP1 is the world’s first 200-megapixel (MP) image sensor.

The sensor’s groundbreaking pixel count allows you to faithfully capture each and every aspect of your favorite moments. This means that images captured with the ISOCELL HP1 contain a world of detail even when cropped or zoomed in. To help users take full advantage of the 200MP sensor, the ISOCELL HP1 comes with Samsung’s new 4×4 hybrid pixel-binning technology, which allows it to adjust its pixel layout to suit the shooting environment, and is powered by a sophisticated, deep learning-based software remosaic.

The sensor’s pixel-binning technology also enables it to record crisp 8K videos with minimum loss in the field of view. It works by combining four pixels into one 1.28μm-sized pixel, allowing you to capture gorgeous 8K videos at 30fps, and stunning 4K slow-motion clips at 120fps.

Light Up the Night

Say goodbye to grainy low-light photos. The ISOCELL HP1’s combination of pixel-binning technology, Smart-ISO and multisampling allows you to capture clearer photos in dark settings.

When shooting in low-light environments, 4×4 hybrid pixel-binning technology – one of the ISOCELL HP1’s most versatile innovations – merges 16 pixels into one large, 2.56μm-sized pixel. This greatly improves the sensor’s light absorption, producing bright, 12.5MP images with less noise.

Smart-ISO, meanwhile, allows the ISOCELL HP1 to intelligently adjust to various lighting conditions. In dim environments, it switches to High ISO mode to deliver brighter, clearer photos. In well-lit environments, it selects Low ISO mode to ensure accurate colors and to reduce oversaturation. Finally, the image sensor’s multisampling technology reduces noise by analyzing multiple readouts of each pixel and averaging them into one.

Vibrant HDR Photos

The ISOCELL HP1 combines crystal clear details with vivid colors that make your photos pop. This is possible thanks to the addition of cutting-edge technologies like Staggered HDR and Smart-ISO Pro.

The former allows the image sensor to achieve a wide dynamic range of 100dB. A fast and efficient method of producing high dynamic range images, Staggered HDR captures frames at short, middle and long exposures to accurately expose shadows and highlights. It then merges those exposures into one image, so you can enjoy crisp, clear photos even in mixed-lighting scenarios. The ISOCELL HP1 also features Smart-ISO Pro, which takes Smart-ISO’s benefits a step further to enhance HDR video recording with sharper images and fewer motion artifacts.

Focus at the Speed of Life

To make it easier for users to capture fleeting moments, Samsung equipped the ISOCELL HP1 with fast and accurate autofocus. This is made possible thanks to the image sensor’s Double Super PD phase detection technology. Double Super PD technology contains twice as many autofocus pixels as Super PD. Those pixels are covered by AF micro-lenses that allow you to focus on fast-moving objects faster and capture stunning content.

With its groundbreaking resolution and cutting-edge technologies, the ISOCELL HP1 offers users access to a whole new world of detail. Get the most out of any moment with an image sensor that’s designed for a new era of mobile photography.

“Samsung’s advanced pixel technologies have once again pushed boundaries with the utmost precision to develop an image sensor with the industry’s smallest pixel size, yet with powerful performance. The new ISOCELL JN1 at 0.64μm will be able to equip tomorrow’s sleekest smartphones with ultra-high resolution mobile photographs,” said Duckhyun Chang, executive vice president of the sensor business at Samsung Electronics. “As we drive our commitment to innovation in pixel technologies, we will continue to bring a wide range of mobile image sensor offerings to the market.”

A new addition to Samsung’s high-resolution image sensor lineup, the JN1 employs ISOCELL 2.0 technology with added enhancements that improve light sensitivity by around 16-percent. For low-light environments, the sensor utilizes Samsung’s four-to-one pixel binning technology, Tetrapixel, which merges four adjacent 0.64μm-pixels into one big 1.28μm-pixel to quadruple light sensitivity for brighter 12.5Mp photographs.

With such advanced technologies all embedded in a small 1/2.76-inch optical format, the ISOCELL JN1 is the most versatile image sensor yet from Samsung. Through close collaboration with ecosystem partners, the JN1 is compatible with existing 1/2.8-inch products, allowing the sensor to be used for front-facing, ultra-wide or telephoto cameras, in addition to standard wide camera options. This means that users can take highly detailed selfies or group pictures in an amazing 50Mp resolution, as well as high-resolution video at up to 4K and high-zoom ratios. The smaller sensor can also reduce the height of the camera module by around 10-percent, minimizing the camera bulge for slimmer and more streamlined designs in next-generation smartphones.

For enhanced dynamic range, the ISOCELL JN1 comes with Smart-ISO, a technology that changes the conversion gain based on the environment’s illumination level. Smart-ISO uses Low ISO mode in bright settings to retain detail in the highlights, and High ISO in low-lit environments to reduce readout noise and generate excellent low-light performance. Using Smart-ISO, the JN1 also offers inter-scene HDR in mixed-light settings for optimum exposure levels derived from two separate readouts, from Low and High ISOs, that are merged to create a final image.

For faster auto-focus, the ISOCELL JN1 integrates improved Double Super PD. The previous Super PD technology used specially designed oval-shaped micro-lenses over two adjacent pixels arranged side by side to detect phases. Double Super PD features twice the density of pixels (1/16) used for phase detection than Super PD (1/32), enabling the same auto-focus performance even in environments with about 60-percent less illumination levels. For smooth crystal-clear videos, the image sensor supports up to 4K resolution video recording at 60 frames-per-second (fps) or full HD at 240fps.

The Samsung ISOCELL JN1 is currently in mass production.

* Editor’s Note: Actual performance may vary depending on device and user environment.

* Samsung first announced its ISOCELL technology in 2013, which reduces color crosstalk between pixels by placing a physical barrier, allowing small-sized pixels to achieve higher color fidelity. Based on this technology, Samsung introduced the industry’s first 1.0um-pixel image sensor in 2015 and a 0.9-pixel sensor in 2017. Samsung continues to enhance its pixel isolation methods with ISOCELL Plus and the ISOCELL 2.0 technologies.

Stunning Details with 108 Million Pixels

The ISOCELL HM3 packs in 108 million 0.8um-sized pixels that are optimized to enhance clarity, allowing it to capture images that are highly detailed. For enhanced light sensitivity and color fidelity, each pixel is improved with ISOCELL 2.0 technology, which is a new generation of Samsung’s pixel isolation technology. ISOCELL technology uses a physical barrier between neighboring pixels to reduce color interference and prevent optical loss. With ISOCELL 2.0, Samsung utilized upgraded materials between color filters to increase light sensitivity and improve color fidelity.

The ISOCELL HM3 also features Nonapixel technology, which elevates performance in low-light conditions. In low-light environments, the image sensor combines nine pixels into one, and together, these nine pixels produce a single, big-pixel-like effect, allowing the newly formed pixel to absorb more light and thus produce bright, clear photos with reduced noise. The sensor also includes an improved re-mosaic algorithm that allows it to rearrange its 108 million pixels to best effect in bright settings, ensuring that it delivers optimized image resolution.

Bring Images to Life with Vibrant Colors

A truly capable image sensor must be able to adjust to take high quality photos in a broad range of lighting environments. With Smart-ISO, the ISOCELL HM3 is equipped with two levels of conversion gain for high and low ISO modes, allowing the camera to intelligently select the optimal settings for the lighting condition.

When shooting in well-lit environments, the ISOCELL HM3 takes pictures in low ISO mode in order to express colors more vividly and reduce oversaturation. When taking photos in low-lit environments, however, the sensor switches to high ISO mode to ensure your photos come out bright and clear. What’s more, to further improve nighttime shooting capabilities, the ISOCELL HM3 employs multi-sampling technology, which reads a scene into multiple frames and produces an average read of the frames to reduce noise in your final image. As a result, you get crisp, clear nighttime shots with less grainy-looking noise.

And Smart-ISO Pro takes things a step further by allowing the user to capture outstanding images with a broad dynamic range in mixed light settings as well. In this situation, the image sensor combines readings from both low and high ISO to allow the sensor to produce a single high-quality image with 12-bit color depth. To widen dynamic range even further, the ISOCELL HM3 also includes a Staggered-HDR feature, a fast, power-efficient method of producing high-dynamic range images. Staggered-HDR uses rolling shutters over the same pixel arrays to capture multiple frames at short, middle, and long exposures and then send each row of pixels respectively to the mobile processor. As a result, you get clear, vivid images even in mixed-lighting scenarios, such as sunsets or when shooting indoors against a window.

Capture All Motion Clearly

Few things are more important than autofocus when it comes to capturing scenes that are in motion. Fortunately, the ISOCELL HM3 includes Super PD Plus, which employs micro-lenses that cover the phase detection focusing agents and produce fast, precise autofocus. With optimized curvature on the autofocus micro-lenses, this advanced phase detection autofocus (PDAF) in the ISOCELL HM3 allows users to keep fast-moving subjects in focus, even in dark environments, so that they can capture them in crystal-clear definition.

What’s more, the ISOCELL HM3 doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to capturing high-quality videos, either. Supporting 8K high-resolution video recording, the sensor allows users to capture stunningly detailed videos in crystal-clear clarity. This function allows users to capture slow-motion videos as well, with the sensor capable of taking 4K videos at 120 frames per second and capturing full HD videos at an incredibly slow 240 frames per second.

Let your image sensor elevate your smartphone photography to new heights. By putting the power to capture next-level photos and videos right there in your pocket, the ISOCELL HM3 is raising the bar for smartphone photography.

Accordingly, Samsung has released its 108-megapixel (Mp) ISOCELL Bright HMX, the industry’s first mobile image sensor to exceed 100 million pixels. Boasting a resolution similar to that of a medium format expert-grade camera, this new image sensor not only enables the user to capture extremely sharp photos, but also allows them to do so in a wide range of adverse lighting conditions. Check out the video below to see the ISOCELL Bright HMX’s features and user benefits in-depth.

Bringing Professional-grade Quality to the Smartphone Camera

Following in the footsteps of Samsung’s expansion of its 0.8μm image sensor range, the ISOCELL Bright HMX delivers 108Mp – 108 million effective pixels – in each individual image. This pixel-count allows the camera to deliver extremely well-defined images that remain sharp even when zoomed in or cropped. The image sensor achieves this by utilizing 0.8μm-sized pixels, and is the first mobile image sensor in the industry to feature a larger 1/1.33-inch size. These features enable the ISOCELL Bright HMX to absorb more light in low-lit environments, allowing the sensor to ‘see’ more when formulating a photograph. In better-lit conditions, having a high-quality image sensor allows for sharper textures and better overall color accuracy.

Samsung’s ISOCELL Plus technology is another key component underpinning the ISOCELL Bright HMX. This advanced pixel isolation technology minimizes optical loss and prevents each 0.8μm pixel from being contaminated by the colors of the ones adjacent to it. Placing a barrier around each pixel, this technology represents a vast improvement on the previous backside illuminated (BSI) sensors, which were susceptible to quality degradation due to pixel crosstalk. Engineers also tried introducing a physical barrier between neighboring pixels, isolating them and allowing more light to be gathered by the micro-lens and absorbed by the photodiode, but this also led to optical loss. ISOCELL Plus technology replaces a metal barrier with an innovative new material that minimizes optical loss and light reflection. It also allows the photodiode to absorb more light, resulting in superb pixel performance, even with smaller pixel sizes.

The evolution of Samsung’s ISOCELL Plus pixel isolation technology

Sensor Technology for Best Performance in All Lighting Conditions

When pixels receive light information, that information is then subjected to analog gain or signal amplification before being converted into a digital signal by the analog digital convertor (ADC). ‘Native ISO’ is the baseline setting that a camera is set to that allows it to get the most detail out of an image, deviation from which can result in unwanted amplification or reduction of the sensor’s sensitivity to light. But with just a single native ISO, over-amplification can occur when conditions are very bright and unwanted noise can appear when an environment is low-light.

With the ISOCELL Bright HMX, Samsung has created a solution to mitigate these issues by incorporating Smart-ISO technology (including one low and one high amplification ISO) into the new mobile image sensor. The inclusion of this technology allows the sensor to intelligently select amplification levels according to how the scene is lit, optimizing light-to-electric signal conversation and making cameras more versatile across a range of lighting environments.

Notably, Samsung’s ISOCELL Bright HMX helps users manage the age-old question in photography of – how best to capture photographs in low-light conditions. While taking pictures with smaller pixels allows for better resolution, utilizing larger pixels is the best way to improve the sensor’s ability to absorb light. Thus, it has been necessary to find some kind of middle ground in which good quality photos can be captured in poorly lit environments. That’s where Samsung’s Tetrapixel* Technology comes in. In the ISOCELL Bright HMX, an advanced algorithm rearranges pixels according to lighting condition, merging clusters of four pixels into single pixels and allowing 0.8μm pixels to be transformed into 1.6μm ones. Even after merging of pixels, by having over 100 million pixels to start with, ISOCELL Bright HMX still ensures incredibly high 27Mp resolutions for great low-light photography.

As well as offering users advanced lighting condition management technology, the ISOCELL Bright HMX also features Super-PD autofocus for fast and accurate autofocus capabilities. Users can capture crisp, clear photos with precise focus of both still and moving objects, even in low-light environments.

Conventional autofocus capabilities require the processor to find the areas of highest contrast and employ a trial and error method to achieve an optimal focus. However, phase detection autofocus enabled by Super-PD technology means that mobile image sensors which feature PD pixels can quickly calculate how far away an object is and automatically optimize focus for the shot.

With the low-light, bright-lit and auto-focused movement photography capabilities offered by the ISOCELL Bright HMX image sensor, users will be able to capture those special moments in outstanding quality, no matter what the conditions may be.

For more information on how the ISOCELL image sensors are empowering users to capture moments with near-true-to-life mobile photography, check out the video below:

* Technological term of “Tetrapixel” was updated in July 2022.

With over 100 million effective pixels enabling extremely sharp photographs rich in detail, the ISOCELL Bright HMX also produces exceptional photos even in extreme lighting conditions. Being the first mobile image sensor to adopt a large 1/1.33-inch size, the HMX can absorb more light in low-lit settings than smaller sensors and its pixel-merging Tetrapixel* technology allows the sensor to imitate big-pixel sensors, producing brighter 27Mp images. In bright environments, the Smart-ISO, a mechanism that intelligently selects the level of amplifier gains according to the illumination of the environment for optimal light-to-electric signal conversion, switches to a low ISO to improve pixel saturation and produce vivid photographs. The mechanism uses a high ISO in darker settings that helps reduce noise, resulting in clearer pictures. For advanced filming, the HMX supports video recording without losses in field-of-view at resolutions up to 6K (6016 x 3384) 30-frames-per-second (fps).

“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,” said Lin Bin, co-founder and president of Xiaomi. “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 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,” said Yongin Park, executive vice president of sensor business at Samsung Electronics. “Through close collaboration with Xiaomi, ISOCELL Bright HMX is the first mobile image sensor to pack over 100 million pixels and delivers unparalleled color reproduction and stunning detail with advanced Tetrapixel and ISOCELL Plus technology.”

Mass production for Samsung ISOCELL Bright HMX will begin later this month.

* Samsung first announced its ISOCELL technology in 2013, which reduces color-cross talk between pixels by placing a physical barrier, allowing small-sized pixels to achieve higher color fidelity. Based on this technology, Samsung introduced the industry’s first 1.0um-pixel image sensor in 2015 and 0.9-pixel sensor in 2017. In June 2018, Samsung introduced an upgraded pixel isolation technology, the ISOCELL Plus

* Technological term of “Tetrapixel” was updated in July 2022