Mobile World Congress is just around the corner and OmniVision has got the smartphone camera innovation going ahead with its new vision sensor. The OV50A image sensor having the 50-megapixel resolution is the first of its kind to have 100-percent PDAF – phase detection that results in far better autofocus. The sensor is going to make it to high-end smartphones in 2021, and things are looking exciting in the smartphone camera arena with this innovation.
According to the official press release by the image sensor maker, it’ll have a 1.0 micron pixel size along with the selective conversion gain and 1/1.5” optical format. The latter comes with quad phase detection (QPD) autofocus technology and the on-chip remosaic.
According to OmniVision the gap between smartphone cameras and DSLR cameras is steadily closing and their QPD autofocus tech has narrowed that down even further. This is possible with the DSLR comparable autofocus performance for mobile phone platform.
If we have to make a layman understand what all this fancy technology implementation means then it is basically a better image reproduction for the (wide and ultra-wide sensors. OmniVision achieves this by bringing superior ability of the image sensor to calculate the distance and low light detection in tricky conditions.
In combination with the PureCel Plus-S stacked die technology, the new sensor makes possible 50-megapixel Bayer output and real-time 8K videos. That means 8K videos having QPD autofocus at 30 fps, 12.5MP 8K videos at 60fps and 4K.2K videos at 90 fps.
This new sensor technology comes at the back of the 1.0 micron 64MP sensor technology released in the latter half of 2020. Coming on to the end-user attainment of the technology, well, the sensor will be in action on flagship devices by the second quarter of 2021. No smartphone manufacturers already on-board have been revealed yet, so we have our fingers crossed.