Samsung has revealed its new 200MP sensor. It’s called ISOCELL HP3


More MP means more details!

There were two, then four, then six, then eight! And then we jumped to 12, then 48. We didn’t have enough so we soared up high to 108MP. Now, Samsung has broken a milestone, and possibly part of your phone’s internal storage to release the 200MP ISOCELL HP3. Samsung has a knack for making super high MP cameras, but that requires a lot of engineering.

Samsung touted this image sensor as having the “industry’s smallest 0.56-micrometer pixels”. Samsung is always pushing in creating really tiny image sensors that could fit huge pixels while also maintaining bright and high-quality images cramped inside a tiny space known as a smartphone.

“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 0.56?m 200MP ISOCELL HP3, Samsung will push on to deliver epic resolutions beyond professional levels for smartphone camera users.”

It is the successor to the popular HP2 image sensor with 108MP resolution that was announced back in 2019. According to them, this image sensor has a 12% smaller pixel size than the latter’s 0.64µm. The sensor itself has a diameter size of 1/1.4″. This small yet compact size allows manufacturers to add 200MP cameras to their phones while also keeping them slim.

The phone’s QPD autofocusing solution allow the sensor to have all of its pixels have autofocus capabilities. This new autofocus solution allows for even faster autofocus capabilities. Samsung also said that the sensor can capture 8K video at 30fps with minimal FOV loss, or 4K@120fps.

The sensor is based on a tetra-pixel technology and Quad Bayer pixel binning. This means it takes one 1.12µm 50MP shot and then multiplies it into four, or one 2.24µm 12.5MP shots multiplied 16 times. Samsung claims this technique allows for a more vibrant and brighter image result, even in dark situations.

It has Smart-ISO Pro technology to further enhance dynamic range. The way it works is that it takes two images, one with low ISO and the other with high ISO and merge them to create HDR images. The upgraded version comes in three stages — Low, Mid, and High. This technology also allows for processing 4 trillion colours in a 14-bit colour depth.

Samsung is yet to announce on which smartphone this might appear, but it is speculated to come first on the upcoming Motorola Frontier, a phone that is said to come with a 200MP camera. The image sensor would be available for production starting this year.

Source: Samsung Newsroom