A few days ago, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi announced that one of its upcoming Redmi smartphones will have a 64 MP Samsung ISOCELL GW1 sensor. At the end of the announcement was a teaser for an imminently releasing Mi series device which would utilize an absolutely insane 108 MP camera sensor capable of capturing images with 12,032 x 9,024 pixels. While Xiaomi has been vague about its announcement, Samsung launches earlier today its very own ISOCELL Bright HMX sensor for smartphones.
The ISOCELL Bright HMX sensor is the first-ever mobile image sensor from the South Korean tech and electronics giant to go beyond 100 MP. The new product is the fruition of the company's effort and collaboration with the Xiaomi. The sensor sizes up to a massive 1/1.33 inches; allowing it to absorb more light, especially in low-light settings.
It is worth noting that mobile sensors with high mega-pixel count depend on some kind of pixel binning. The ISOCELL Bright HMX sensor does this too with the help of the Samsung Tetracell technology. Through this, the sensor could merge four pixels into one creating brighter 27 MP images.
Additionally, the ISOCELL Bright HMX sensor utilizes Smart ISO, which is a tool that automatically chooses the level of amplifier gains based on the lighting for ideal light to electric signal conversion. The Smart ISO shifts to low ISO in bright settings to enhance the pixel saturation and to adopt a high ISO in a dark environment and to minimize noise. The latest sensor also supports up to 6K video recording at 30 fps without losses in the FOV or field of view.
Samsung and Xiaomi collaborated from the early conceptual stage up to the production of the ISOCELL Bright HMX sensor. The mass production for the latest sensor from Samsung will start later in August. So far, neither Samsung nor Xiaomi has revealed the name of their first smartphone to house this crazy 108 MP camera sensor.
But, many tech analysts are already speculating that Samsung might integrate the ISOCELL Bright HMX sensor to the Samsung S11. As for Xiaomi, Realme previously unveiled a prototype of a 64 MP device after Xiaomi announced its 64 MP smartphone. Samsung Electronics' Yonging Park, the executive vice president of the company's sensor business earlier says that Samsung is continuously pushing to more innovations particularly in the logic and pixel technologies in engineering the ISOCELL Bright HMX sensor. The executive adds that they want the new image sensors to captivate the world as close as to how the human eyes perceive it.
