When a Smartphone camera operates at the same node size as an intel - Samsung working on 144 megapixel camera

[williamcll]

After the 108 megapixel camera used by XiaoMi (and perhaps the upcoming Galaxy S11 as well?), Samsung is now developing the second generation of that camera sensor on a new fabrication node of fourteen nanometers, estimated to have better power efficiency. How they will fix the issue where higher pixel counts have poor brightness is still under question.

Quote

Cameras can be game-changers when it comes to smartphones, and that’s why they are one of the highly advertised features for a lot of companies. Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S11 and Galaxy Fold’s successor are believed to come with the company’s 108MP sensor. This will be a major jump from the 12MP sensors that Samsung’s current high-end phones feature, but it doesn’t look like the company is putting the breaks on its progress anytime soon. A tipster has reason to believe that Samsung might launch a 144MP sensor in the future. Want to guess who that tipster is? None other than Ice Universe, who now claims that the South Korean giant is planning to develop 144MP sensors using a 14nm process. As the leakster notes, right now the pixel count ranges from around 10MP to nearly 100MP. However, for achieving a pixel density greater than 100MP, the 14nm process will be required.

 

Additionally, using the 14nm FinFET process will also result in reduced power consumption. This can allow OEMs to improve the pixel count of their devices without delivering a negative effect on battery life and without unnecessarily increasing the battery’s capacity, though it’s something a lot of customers would love seeing in future devices. More pixels usually require more time for data processing and this can shorten battery life. Looking at the accompanying images, it seems that power saving would be huge or somewhere around 42 percent.

 

Other details remain sparse and Samsung hasn’t officially mentioned a 144MP sensor yet. However, during IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) that took last week, the company did talk about optimizing the 14nm FinFET process for imaging applications. Of course, whether smartphones really need so many pixels is debatable. As the likes of the iPhone 11 Pro, Pixel 4, and even Samsung’s own Galaxy Note 10 Plus have shown us, the amount of pixels isn’t necessarily the deciding factor when it comes to smartphone photography. Other things such as image processing, lens quality, and reliable computational techniques are equally important.

 

So, while we don’t know for sure if and when Samsung will launch a phone with a 144MP camera, we are certainly looking forward to the Galaxy S11 to find out if a 108MP sensor will help it beat competing devices in 2020. Then again, it’s always refreshing to see what advancements such companies are coming up with.

Source:https://wccftech.com/samsung-144mp-sensors-14nm-process/

https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_unveils_14nm_finfet_technology_for_144mp_image_sensors-news-40591.php

https://www.gizmochina.com/2019/12/16/samsung-to-make-a-144mp-camera-sensor-using-14nm-processing/

Thoughts: When it comes to node size, people would only think of processors back then. Now even camera senors are on the same level as consumer CPUs, I can see the competition (such as sony) will need to push even harder now to develop better CMOS senors.

[TempestCatto]

No matter what, a phone camera will never be as good as real camera. But they do work well for a person trying to record evidence at a car accident or take pictures of their home for insurance purposes.

[Levent]

Holy fuck, what would be approximate file size with a picture taken with one of those? 4GB?

[williamcll]

7 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

No matter what, a phone camera will never be as good as real camera. But they do work well for a person trying to record evidence at a car accident or take pictures of their home for insurance purposes.

a 14nm square inch camera sensor will really be a massive pixel cruncher.

[TempestCatto]

4 minutes ago, williamcll said:

a 14nm square inch camera sensor will really be a massive pixel cruncher.

Megapixles haven't really been that much of a big deal for a long while now. Maybe in a phone camera it still means something. But a regular sized DSLR, it doesn't much matter.

[The1Dickens]

25 minutes ago, Levent said:

Holy fuck, what would be approximate file size with a picture taken with one of those? 4GB?

I would think it would be for sub-pixel sampling? While it may have an effective resolution of 44160x21840 (or 11.5x UHD roughly, guesstimated based on 16:9 aspect ratio), it will likely use those extra pixels to collect HDR data, or calculate jitter/shakiness and provide for a much sharper final image that won't fill up the storage after 12 pictures (BMP RGB 3x8bit/pixel = 3.29GB per picture full resolution) (as calculated by this calculator).

 

But if these can be done on the small cellphone cameras, I'll be interested in seeing how they scale for high-end stuff. 1.08Gp on a 1/2-inch sensor, what does that translate to for a full frame?

 

1.4Gigapixel numbers:

Resolution: 49920x28080 (or 13x UHD)

BMP RGB 3x8bit/pixel = 4.21GB per picture full resolution

Edited December 20, 2019 by The1Dickens
Added 1.4Gigapixel numbers

[BuckGup]

2 hours ago, TempestCatto said:

Megapixles haven't really been that much of a big deal for a long while now. Maybe in a phone camera it still means something. But a regular sized DSLR, it doesn't much matter.

Nope it definitely still does. There's a reason people use hasselblad cameras for highend professional work

[EarthWormJM2]

3 hours ago, williamcll said:

1.08 gigapixel

Ummm, this is wrong. We aren't anywhere near GigaPixel levels in smart phones yet...Title is misleading.

108MP does not equal 1.08GP. 1,080MP would equal 1.08GP.

1,000=KP, 1,000,000=MP, 1,000,000,000=GP, just like file sizes.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigapixel_image

[Lenovich]

2 hours ago, TempestCatto said:

Megapixles haven't really been that much of a big deal for a long while now. Maybe in a phone camera it still means something. But a regular sized DSLR, it doesn't much matter.

as a amateur photographer I will say: good optics on large sensor matters. And if camera have  more megapixels this mean more creative freedom for photographer. so, megapixels still matters.

[Results45]

5 hours ago, TempestCatto said:

Megapixles haven't really been that much of a big deal for a long while now. Maybe in a phone camera it still means something. But a regular sized DSLR, it doesn't much matter.

 

Well yes, getting a professional camera (DSLR or Mirrorless) still matters, but for 90% of the time all you need is a good smartphone camera nowadays. Especially when smartphone image quality and camera capability is not on-par with point-and-shoot camera from 5-10 years ago.

 

Just imagine a few years from now everyone will have a phone with a 100MP camera sensor half the size of your pinky nail with 10x optical zoom, 25x hybrid zoom, AI-assisted image processing*, infrared-assisted low light photography, and maybe even a CMOS sensor specialized to process polarized light for extremely accurate motion detection for things like AR.

 

So yes, "real cameras" still reign (as demonstrated by Linus below), but as mobile device hardware is now being adapted with ever more professional functionality in 5-10 years our "phone" may be the only piece of tech we'll need for any given use-case ~ professional photography included 

 

Spoiler

.

 

*processing quality on-par or better than Google, Hauwei, Apple, Samsung, & Oneplus

[Mihle]

Megapixel count have passed the limit of the size of glass a phone lens is a good while ago, only benefit at this point is more data for different algorithms.

[Unixsystem]

8 hours ago, TempestCatto said:

No matter what, a phone camera will never be as good as real camera. But they do work well for a person trying to record evidence at a car accident or take pictures of their home for insurance purposes.

Those are some extremely bizarre and specific examples. 

 

A mediocre smartphone camera is good enough for 99% of the photos that are ever going to be taken. Keep in mind that for decades everyone was fine with Polaroids or disposible cameras that produced photos that were a fraction of the quality of any modern smartphone while also being infinitely less convenient and usable in the future.

 

Will smartphones ever be as good as a high end dedicated DSLR? Almost certainly not. But unless you're an actual photographer the differences are going to be infintessimally small and dramatically outweighed by the cost and convenience factors of having a phone camera. They are far more valuable than just being good enough for insurance photos. 

[williamcll]

11 hours ago, Sampsy said:

Wouldn't a Gigapixel be 1000 Megapixels as it is with everything else? So this new camera would be 0.144 Gigapixels not 1.44. 

fixed

[Brooksie359]

On 12/20/2019 at 9:21 AM, TempestCatto said:

No matter what, a phone camera will never be as good as real camera. But they do work well for a person trying to record evidence at a car accident or take pictures of their home for insurance purposes.

I mean what makes a camera a "real camera"? I mean I used different cameras  growing up before the creation of smart phones and many of them were worse in quality than what smart phones can do now. Your statement is so vague that it can only be concluded as incorrect. 

[realpetertdm]

On 12/21/2019 at 12:43 AM, The1Dickens said:

I would think it would be for sub-pixel sampling? While it may have an effective resolution of 44160x21840 (or 11.5x UHD roughly, guesstimated based on 16:9 aspect ratio), it will likely use those extra pixels to collect HDR data, or calculate jitter/shakiness and provide for a much sharper final image that won't fill up the storage after 12 pictures (BMP RGB 3x8bit/pixel = 3.29GB per picture full resolution) (as calculated by this calculator).

 

But if these can be done on the small cellphone cameras, I'll be interested in seeing how they scale for high-end stuff. 1.08Gp on a 1/2-inch sensor, what does that translate to for a full frame?

 

1.4Gigapixel numbers:

Resolution: 49920x28080 (or 13x UHD)

BMP RGB 3x8bit/pixel = 4.21GB per picture full resolution

Geez, it looks like 512GB options will be a must buy if people are planning to use that full resolution.

 

Maybe Samsung will start adding 1TB storage options on their phones.

 

Also it's going to be a pain in the ass to sync these pictures to Google Cloud. Even on Gigabit ethetnet it would take 30 seconds to upload one photo. Imagine uploading tens of 4GB photos on ~50mbps internet.

[Founders]

On 12/20/2019 at 3:59 PM, Results45 said:

professional photography included 

Are you a professional photographer? 

[Sauron]

On 12/20/2019 at 4:27 PM, Levent said:

Holy fuck, what would be approximate file size with a picture taken with one of those? 4GB?

Nah, a single pixel's RGB data can be stored in 3 Bytes so a raw picture at a resolution of 144Mp would take up about 450MB - though in reality there's usually some lossless compression even in raw formats so it would probably be lower.

 

This isn't intended to ever shoot at that resolution though; in a real use case you'd shoot at one fourth or one ninth of that and use the extra pixels to improve low light performance and the sensor's signal to noise ratio.

[The1Dickens]

5 hours ago, realpetertdm said:

Geez, it looks like 512GB options will be a must buy if people are planning to use that full resolution.

 

Maybe Samsung will start adding 1TB storage options on their phones.

 

Also it's going to be a pain in the ass to sync these pictures to Google Cloud. Even on Gigabit ethetnet it would take 30 seconds to upload one photo. Imagine uploading tens of 4GB photos on ~50mbps internet.

As was mentioned previously, though (thanks @Sampsy and @EarthWormJM2), those numbers were off, since 1Gp is 1000Mp, not 100. And it's not as simple as dividing the numbers by 10, so I went ahead and did some more guesstimations to get the following information:

 

141 Megapixels: 15840x8910 (16:9) or 8.25x 1080p; or 4.125x UHD

BMP RGB 3x8bit/pixel = 423MB

 

This means in 64 GB, you could get about 150 pictures. Not including apps, OS, and other things you have on your phone, so this would more or less be assuming on a SD card.