Samsung Unveils 200MP ISOCELL HP3 – Industry’s Smallest 0.56μm Pixel

Samsung Electronics introduced the 200MP ISOCELL HP3, the image sensor with the industry’s smallest 0.56μm pixels.

Samsung ISOCELL HP3

“Samsung has continuously led the image sensor market trend through its technology leadership in high resolution sensors with the smallest pixels,” said JoonSeo Yim, executive vice president of sensor business team at Samsung Electronics. “With our latest and upgraded 0.56μm 200MP ISOCELL HP3, Samsung will push on to deliver epic resolutions beyond professional levels for smartphone camera users.”

The ISOCELL HP3 is 12% smaller in pixel size than the predecessor and packs 200-million pixels in a 1/1.4″ optical format. This enabled an approximately 20% reduction in camera module surface area while allowing smartphone manufacturers to keep their premium devices slim.

The ISOCELL HP3 comes with a Super QPD auto-focusing solution, all the sensor’s pixels now are equipped with auto-focusing capabilities. In addition, Super QPD uses a single lens over four-adjacent pixels to detect the phase differences in both horizontal and vertical directions. So this paves way for a more accurate and quick auto focusing for smartphone camera users.

Samsung also introduced Tetrapixel technology that combines four pixels into one to transform the 0.56μm 200MP sensor into a 1.12μm 50MP sensor, or a 12.5MP sensor with 2.24μm-pixels by combining 16 pixels into one. The technology enables the sensor to simulate a large-sized pixel sensor to take brighter and more vibrant shots even in dimmed environments, like indoors or during nighttime.

The ISOCELL HP3 also adopted improved Smart-ISO Pro features that maximize the dynamic range of the camera sensor. The upgraded version of Smart-ISO Pro now merges not just two conversion gains of Low and High ISO, it now added Mid ISO to further widens the sensor’s dynamic range. In addition, the improved Smart-ISO Pro enables the sensor to express images in over 4 trillion colors (14-bit color depth), 64 times more colors than the predecessor’s 68 billion (12-bit). Furthermore, by supporting staggered HDR along with Smart-ISO Pro, the ISOCELL HP3 can switch between the two solutions depending on the filming environment to produce high-quality HDR images.

Samples of the Samsung ISOCELL HP3 are currently available, and mass production is set to begin this year. We may probably be seeing it on Samsung’s next S-series smartphone next year.

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