The smartphone camera technology is now entering the next phase of innovation as the focus is now on achieving next-level smartphone photography. CIS vendors have continued to witness demand from customers even during the COVID impacted 2020 as smartphone vendors have constantly tried to position their devices with differentiated camera capabilities.
Today, OmniVision Technologies announced its latest image sensor for smartphones, the OV40A image sensor which is a 40MP high resolution sensor with a 1.0μm pixel size. The new sensor is aimed at achieving superior low light photography for smartphones.
Image Source: OmniVision
Key Features
- The OV40A is a 40MP image sensor with a sensor size of 1/1.7" and a pixel size of 1.0 µm designed on OmniVision’s PureCel®Plus stacked die technology.
- The highlighting feature of the image sensor is that it provides strong low light imaging capabilities by combining a very high gain and de-noise functionality to enhance the dark environment in a scene.
- The sensor’s 4 cell color filter array and hardware remosiac delivers a high resolution 40MP Bayer output. For low-light capture, the sensor uses 4-to-1pixel binning mechanism to amplify the total sensor pixel size to 2.0µm with a resolution of 10MP which has higher light sensitivity.
- The sensor enables support for 40MP video recording at 30 fps and 4K videos at 60fps, along with 10MP video capture at 120fps. The sensor also offers excellent HDR and high frame rate autofocus.
Outlook
This year, OmniVision Technologies has already introduced two new image sensors for smartphones which include OV32B and the OV40A. These two sensors complement the increasing portfolio of CIS for smartphones from the vendor. OmniVision Technologies product offerings now include 64MP (OV64B, OV64C), 48MP (OV48B, OV48C), 40MP (OV40A) and 32MP (OV32A, OV32B) image sensors in the high-resolution sensor segment.
We note that in Q3 2020, we saw Sony Semicon take 50 percent revenue share followed by Samsung LSI and OmniVision Technologies, which is highlighted in our latest report.
The 40MP OV40A image sensor can be used in the main, wide, ultra-wide rear camera configurations. Moreover, there is a strong possibility of the sensor being applied for front camera configurations as the need for better selfie camera performance is growing across device tiers. The vendor is certainly going to attract interest from China-based Smartphone vendors who will be aggressive in 2021. High resolution sensor with high pixel size is one of the key trends we are anticipating going forward, the vendor is strongly positioned with its key sensor portfolio.
Key Questions
- The vendor hopes to dominate its position in multi-camera configurations with its latest image sensor. However, Sony and Samsung continue to position their CIS across configurations. Lately, SK Hynix also has seen good momentum for its CIS portfolio. What are the prospects for the vendor this year?
- The low light performance of OV40A gives it a strong positioning in the smartphone camera design features. It will be interesting to see how the smartphone vendors are going to position this sensor within their device portfolio.