Samsung has announced a new 200MP sensor, called the ISOCELL HP3. It has the “smallest pixel in the industry” at just 0.56 μm, which is 12% smaller than its predecessor. It promises faster autofocus and even clearer HDR thanks to a new image stacking algorithm.
The new sensor arrived nine months after the ISOCELL HP1, which is technically the first 200MP camera sensor for smartphones, although we haven’t seen a real phone with it yet. Since then, Samsung has managed to reduce the pixel size by 0.64μm, making the new sensor type 1 / 1.4in – about 20% smaller than its predecessor.
4-to-1 binning adds up to 1.12μm pixels per 50MP photo. For ultra-dark photos, the new sensor also supports 16-to-1 binning for huge 2.24μm pixels and 12.5MP photos.
Samsung also bragged about its Super-QPD autofocus solution. All pixels are equipped with AF functionality, and each group of four has a single lens that recognizes phase differences in the horizontal and vertical directions. The sensor can also shoot 8K video at 30fps and 4K @ 120fps with “minimal loss in the field of view”.
The improved Smart-ISO Pro feature now merges information from three stages: low, medium and high ISO modes to enhance HDR performance. ISOCELL HP3 can produce images with 4 trillion colors (14 bit depth), 64 times more than the predecessor HP1, which was at 68 billion.
Samsung is ready to supply ISOCELL HP3 samples to smartphone makers and expects mass production to begin this year.
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