Samsung introduces BRITECELL smartphone image sensor

Samsung has introduced it's latest smartphone camera technology called BRITECELL or Bright Cell. According to Samsung the BRITECELL technology for camera can make the camera module 17 percent slimmer while improving the photos take in low-light conditions.

Samsung's BRITECELL cameras will have 20MP resolution with 1µm pixels and will be slightly smaller than the current 16-megapixel cameras (which have 1.12µm pixels). This would allow the company to manufacture slimmer smartphones.

With BRITECELL technology, your smartphone camera will produce clearer, crispier photos with minimal lighting sources by removing the camera's layout called Bayer filter. The Bayer filter makes photos darker by using green pixels that can block from passing through the sensors, this prevents images from becoming overexposed. This is not useful for taking photos in low light conditions, however by turning the green pixels white, more light can pass through offering brighter photos.

Samsung also unveiled Smart WDR, which is wide dynamic range, which provides a more detailed image by using multi-exposure of a single object to put them together into a single, clear, color-bright image. Regarding Smart WDR technology, Samsung said- 

When we take a picture in the left side, for example, there is like a dark spot and a very bright part. And you just expose yourself per unit from across the pixel, you have to focus on just one of them. So, when you focus picture exposure based on the dark side. Then bright side became just too bright and the vice versa. So, there is some smart way to control it so that you can take a good quality of image from the dark side of the – dark part of the picture, as well as the bright part of the picture.

And that’s a smart – the wide dynamic range that we introduced. So, basically, adjacent pixels, we can control the different exposure time from one pixel to the next pixel just as sitting next to it. And again, without a good separation between these two, you cannot fully take advantage of that kind of smart WDR.

The sensor will also pack PDAF (Phase Detection Auto Focus) for faster, more accurate locks.  PDAF technique, lets you capture the focus instantly without any such kind of reiteration. This reduces auto focus time dramatically.

The new BRITECELL camera technology is likely to be used in the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S7 smartphone which is expected to be unveiled on February 21.

Kaiser Bey

Kaiser is a tech enthusiast who likes to write, read and talk about tech. He dreams of going to Mars and never come back. We hope that you find his posts on AndroGuider helpful and informative