Taking pictures or videos throughout the day has become part of our normal lifestyles and no longer done just to capture special events. Whip out your mobile camera to immortalize a delectable-looking meal, to record your latest dance moves, or even just when you’re having a good hair day, and you’re ready to share your images with friends right away. These seamless experiences have become possible thanks to remarkable advancements in recent mobile photography, and at the very heart of this revolution is the mobile chips that transform light into digital data – image sensors.

The image sensors we ourselves perceive the world through – our eyes – are said to match a resolution of around 500 megapixels. Compared to most DSLR cameras today that offer 40 megapixels resolution and flagship smartphones with 12 megapixels, we as an industry still have a long way to go to be able to match human perception capabilities.

Simply putting as many pixels as possible together into a sensor might seem like the easy fix, but this would result in a massive image sensor that takes over the entirety of a device. In order to fit millions of pixels in today’s smartphones that feature other cutting-edge specs like high screen-to-body ratios and slim designs, pixels inevitably have to shrink so that sensors can be as compact as possible.

On the flip side, smaller pixels can result in fuzzy or dull pictures, due to the smaller area that each pixel receives light information from. The impasse between the number of pixels a sensor has and pixels’ sizes has become a balancing act that requires solid technological prowess.

For their latest 108Mp image sensor, the ISOCELL Bright HM1, Samsung implemented its proprietary ‘Nonacell technology,’ which dramatically increases the amounts of light absorption pixels are capable of. Compared to previous Tetracell technology which features a 2×2 array, the 3×3 pixel structure of Nonacell technology allows, for instance, nine 0.8μm pixels to function as one 2.4-μm pixel. This also mitigates the issue raised by low-light settings where light information is often scarce.

In 2019, Samsung was also the first to introduce image sensors based on 0.7μm pixels. The industry had considered 0.8μm as the smallest possible size pixels could be reduced to, but to Samsung’s engineers, ‘technological limitations’ are just another challenge that motivates their innovation.

To date, the major applications for image sensors have been in the smartphones field, but this is expected to expand soon into other rapidly-emerging fields such as autonomous vehicles, IoT and drones.

Samsung is proud to have been leading the small-pixel, high-resolution sensor trend that will continue through 2020 and beyond, and is prepared to ride the next wave of technological innovation with a comprehensive product portfolio that addresses the diverse needs of device manufacturers. Through relentless innovation, we are determined to open up endless possibilities in pixel technologies that might even deliver image sensors that can capture more detail than the human eye.

More info on Samsung’s website.