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.

Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today introduced two new 0.8-micrometer (μm) pixel image sensors – the 64-megapixel (Mp) Samsung ISOCELL Bright GW1 and 48Mp ISOCELL Bright GM2. With the addition, Samsung expands its 0.8μm image sensor lineup, the smallest pixel size currently available in the market, from existing 20Mp to ultra-high 64Mp resolutions.

“Over the past few years, mobile phone cameras have become the main instrument for recording and sharing our everyday moments,” said Yongin Park, executive vice president of sensor business at Samsung Electronics. “With more pixels and advanced pixel technologies, Samsung ISOCELL Bright GW1 and GM2 will bring a new level of photography to today’s sleekest mobile devices that will enhance and help change the way we record our daily lives.”

ISOCELL Bright GW1 is a 64Mp image sensor that features the highest resolution in Samsung’s 0.8μm-pixel image sensor lineup. With pixel-merging Tetrapixel technology^** and remosaic algorithm^***, GW1 can produce bright 16Mp images in low-light environments and highly-detailed 64Mp shots in brighter settings. To take pictures resembling the way the human eye perceives its surroundings in a mixed light environment, GW1 supports real-time high dynamic range (HDR) of up to 100-decibels (dB) that provides richer hues. In comparison, the dynamic range of a conventional image sensor is at around 60dB, while that of the human eye is typically considered to be around 120dB.

GW1 is equipped with a Dual Conversion Gain (DCG) that converts the received light into an electric signal according to the illumination of the environment. This allows the sensor to optimize its full well capacity (FWC), utilizing the collected light more efficiently especially in bright environments. Sharper results can be delivered through Super PD, a high-performance phase detection auto-focus technology, and full HD recording at 480 frames-per-second (fps) is supported for smooth cinematic slow motion videos.

ISOCELL Bright GM2 is a 48Mp image sensor that also adopts Tetrapixel technology in low-light environments and a remosaic algorithm in well-lit settings, bringing highly-detailed pictures with natural and vivid colors. GM2, like GW1, adopts DCG as well for added performance and Super PD for fast autofocus.

Samsung ISOCELL Bright GW1 and GM2 are currently sampling and are expected to be in mass production in the second half of this year.

^*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.

^**Tetrapixel technology merges four pixels into one so that users can achieve high quality images in all light conditions.

^***In bright environments, Tetrapixel uses a re-mosaic algorithm to produce full resolution images.

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

Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today introduced its smallest high-resolution image sensor, the ISOCELL Slim 3T2. While being the industry’s most compact image sensor at 1/3.4 inches (approximately 5.1-millimeters diagonally), the 0.8μm-pixel ISOCELL Slim 3T2 delivers 20-megapixel (Mp) resolution for both front and back cameras in today’s sleekest mid-range smartphones.

“The ISOCELL Slim 3T2 is our smallest and most versatile 20Mp image sensor that helps mobile device manufacturers bring differentiated consumer value not only in camera performance but also in features including hardware design,” said Jinhyun Kwon, vice president of System LSI sensor marketing at Samsung Electronics. “As the demand for advanced imaging capabilities in mobile devices continue to grow, we will keep pushing the limits in image sensor technologies for richer user experiences.”

With 20-million active 0.8μm-sized pixels, the ISOCELL Slim 3T2 not just provides excellent clarity and detail. It also offers high color fidelity by adopting Samsung’s ISOCELL Plus technology that enables sensors to capture and absorb more light information for accurate color reproduction even with sub-micrometer-sized pixels.

In order to support smartphones with the latest display features such as the ‘hole-in display’ or ‘notch design,’ front-facing image sensors need to minimize their size while being able to capture high-quality images. The 1/3.4-inch 3T2 snuggly fits into a tiny module making more space for the display. In addition, Samsung’s Tetrapixel* technology, which merges four pixels to work as one, lets the 3T2 take brighter and sharper pictures in low-light settings as the color filter array’s light sensitivity increases to that of a 1.6μm-pixel image sensor at 5Mp resolution.

When applied in rear-facing multi-camera settings for telephoto solutions, the 3T2 adopts an RGB color filter array instead of Tetrapixel technology. The small size of the image sensor also reduces the height of the tele-camera module by around seven percent when compared to Samsung’s 1/3-inch 20Mp image sensor, allowing more elegant smartphone designs. Compared to a 13Mp sensor with the same module height, the 20Mp 3T2 retains 60-percent higher effective resolution at 10x digital zoom that presents clearer and more accurate results.

The Samsung ISOCELL Slim 3T2 is expected to be in mass production in the first quarter of this year.

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

Samsung ISOCELL image sensors fall into four categories—Fast, Slim, Bright and Dual—depending on their key attributes. As market demand for sleeker smartphones with advanced features increases, ISOCELL Fast 2L9 and Slim 2X7 both offer high resolution image sensors in small chip packages, delivering detailed pictures in low-light environments without a camera bump.

With Dual Pixel technology, the ISOCELL Fast 2L9 delivers ultra-fast auto-focus at a reduced pixel size from the previous Dual Pixel sensor’s 1.4μm to 1.28μm. Dual Pixel technology employs two photodiodes in each and every pixel of the sensor instead of only one. With 12 million focus detecting pixels, the sensor is able to not only quickly focus on small still objects, but also lock on and track moving objects without losing focus, even in low-light environments. With smaller pixel size, the ISOCELL Fast 2L9 can fit into slimmer camera modules, enabling bump-less designs for smartphones. Dual Pixel technology especially allows depth-of-field effect for taking bokeh, or aesthetically out-of-focused photographs, through a traditional single lens camera.

At 0.9μm, the ISOCELL Slim 2X7 is the first sensor in the industry to have the pixel size below 1.0μm. Even with such a small pixel size, the Slim 2X7 is able to provide high color fidelity with less noise due to the improved ISOCELL technology’s deeper DTI (deep trench isolation) that reduces color crosstalk and expands the full-well capacity to hold more light information. In addition, the small 0.9μm pixel size enables a 24Mp image sensor to be fitted in a thinner camera module, allowing premium smartphones to offer high resolution cameras in a very slim and elegant design.

The ISOCELL Slim 2X7 is also packed with Tetrapixel technology, which lets the sensor take brighter photographs in the dark and more detailed ones in well-lit environments. Tetrapixel improves performance in low-light situations by merging four neighboring pixels to work as one to increase light sensitivity. In bright environments, Tetrapixel uses a re-mosaic algorithm to produce full resolution images. This enables consumers to use the same front camera to take photos in various lighting conditions.

“Samsung ISOCELL Fast 2L9 and ISOCELL Slim 2X7 are new image sensors that fully utilize Samsung’s advanced pixel technology, and are highly versatile as they can be placed in both front and rear of a smartphone,” said Ben K. Hur, Vice President of System LSI Marketing at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung plans to further develop the Dual Pixel and 0.9μm-pixel product categories, and expand applicable devices for ISOCELL image sensors that can enhance photographing experiences for consumers.”

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