Recently, Samsung introduced how to develop a new image sensor on its official blog, and plans to bring major improvements to the new generation of ISOCELL series image sensors to greatly improve the quality of photo and video shooting.
Multi-frame and multi-exposure (HDR) processing greatly improve still images by capturing at least two frames (low exposure and high exposure) and merging them for better dynamic range. However, it is extremely difficult to video, which means that shooting 30FPS video requires at least 60 frames, which places a heavy burden on image sensors, ISPs, flash memory, etc., resulting in power consumption and temperature spikes.
Samsung is developing another innovative high-refractive nanostructure that uses light from neighboring pixels to reach extreme levels, and by applying these nanophotonics technologies, achieve high sensitivity beyond the usual limits, ultimately improving the sensitivity of ISOCELL series image sensors, which is expected to be launched in 2024.
Samsung’s intelligent ISO Pro technology gives the image sensor a high dynamic range and the ability to capture virtually unlimited color combinations, enabling single-frame progressive HDR (Staggered HDR), which captures shadows and bright lights in a scene in three different exposures: low, medium and high, depending on the shooting environment, and then combines the three exposure photos to obtain high-quality HDR images and videos.
At present, ISOCELL series image sensors generally present pictures with 12-bit color depth, and this year the new ISOCELL HPX/HP3 has been increased to 14 bits, while Samsung plans to increase to 16 bits on the next generation of ISOCELL series image sensors.
Samsung also plans to use an integrated ISP iToF sensor to improve the quality of portrait videos, and the entire depth processing will be done on the sensor, so it will reduce the power consumption of the phone. Samsung said that the improvement will be more noticeable in scenes with low lighting, narrow objects, and repeated patterns.
All of the above technologies will be applied to the ISOCELL series of image sensors launched in 2023 and 2024, and are expected to appear on the Galaxy S24/25 series of smartphones.