“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.

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 August 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 August 2022