Whereas picture sensors utilized in smartphones have made important advances, circumstances corresponding to dawn, sundown, and evening with shiny background lighting nonetheless current challenges. Sensor options supplier OMNIVISION hopes to beat these points with its new OV50K40.
The corporate makes use of a expertise referred to as TheiaCel™, which reportedly harnesses the capabilities of lateral overflow integration capacitors (LOFIC) to supply the best-in-class single-exposure HDR, no matter lighting circumstances. The TheiaCel™-based OV50K40 50-megapixel (MP) picture sensor includes a 1.2-micron (µm) pixel in a 1/1.3-inch optical format with excessive achieve and correlated a number of sampling (CMS) for optimum efficiency in low-light circumstances.
“Conventional HDR suffers from movement artifacts, so single-exposure HDR is fascinating,” mentioned Arun Jayaseelan, senior product advertising supervisor, in an interview with Design Information. “The 100 Db dynamic vary is the very best attainable for single-exposure video and units a brand new bar for rear-facing smartphone primary cameras.”
Jayaseelan added that whereas LOFIC is just not new, it has been troublesome to combine into digital camera sensors. The LOFIC permits the sensor to supply 7.4 instances larger single publicity vary in comparison with the sensor’s non-LOFIC primarily based predecessor.
The OV50K40 helps 4-cell binning for 12.5MP at 120 frames per second (fps) and 60fps with HDR, with 4x sensitivity for flagship-level low-light efficiency. Quad part detection (QPD) permits 2×2 part detection autofocus (PDAF) throughout the sensor’s whole picture array for 100% protection, leading to ultra-fast autofocus efficiency. An on-chip QPD re-mosaic permits full 50MP Bayer output, premium-quality 8K video and 2x crop-zoom performance. The OV50K40 is constructed on OMNIVISION’s PureCel®Plus-S stacked-die expertise, enabling excessive decision with 1.2 µm pixels.
In response to Jayaseelan, the TheiaCel™ expertise was initially deployed within the automotive market, and now could be being utilized to client smartphones. “We look ahead to making use of the TheiaCel™ expertise to further cellular picture sensors in addition to new markets sooner or later,” he mentioned.
