The evolution of today's smartphone camera capabilities is driven by the significant strides made in pixel technology by component vendors, ensuring high-resolution capture scenarios for smartphones. Image sensor vendors have advanced their focus on high pixel sensors owing to the strong increase in demand from smartphone customers. We have already seen a host of new product offerings from the top 3 smartphone image sensor vendors targeted towards high pixel image sensors.
OmniVision Technologies has strongly positioned its portfolio with the early introduction of 64MP image sensors in H1 2020. Continuing on that feat, today, the vendor has announced its latest addition of 64MP image sensors, OV64A image sensor for the smartphone industry. This positions OmniVision as the first sensor vendor to offer a 64MP image sensor with a large pixel size of 1.0 micron for commercial customers.
Image Source: OmniVision
Key Features
- The OV64A is a 64MP High Pixel image sensor with a sensor size of 1/1.34" and a pixel size of 1.0 µm based on OmniVision’s PureCel®Plus-S stacked die technology.
- The large sensor format and high resolution ensure superior low light performance. It also features capabilities like 4-cell HDR with on-chip combination, tone mapping and 3-exposure. The fast frame rate together with the above features eliminates any distortion during motion capture to output a 64MP image with high SNR.
- The sensor integrates a 4 cell color filter array to ensure a 64MP high-resolution Bayer output image post hardware re-mosaic. The sensor can also use pixel binning technique to combine 4 pixels in 1 to output a 16MP image having a pixel size of 2.0µm. This is essential for low light photography, providing 4 times the sensitivity.
- The sensor can be applied in wide and ultra-wide camera configurations. In the case of telephoto applications, the sensor enables 2x digital zoom at 16MP resolution with fast mode switch.
- The sensor enables support for capturing videos in 8K at 30 fps and 4K videos at 120fps, along with 64MP video captures at 15fps.
Outlook
The new 64MP OV64A image sensor is the third offering in the 64MP image sensor portfolio for OmniVision Technologies after having introduced 64MP OV64B with 0.7 micron and 64MP OV64C with 0.8 micron in H1 2020. With the launch of the third 64MP image sensor, the vendor has kept up with the 64MP portfolio of competition.
The vendor now offers image sensors with high-resolution capabilities for the entry, mid and even high-end segment of the smartphone market. We note that in H1 2020, OmniVision captured the 3rd position with 9 percent revenue share in the smartphone image sensor market which is highlighted in our latest report.
The growing area of focus for smartphone image sensor vendors has been on gaining the share in multi-camera applications as well as in the high pixel segment. The 64MP OV64A sensor can be used in the main, ultra-wide or telephoto rear-facing camera configurations, capturing the demand from China-based Smartphone OEM customers to contain the increase in BOM and offer superior camera capabilities.
Key Questions
- The vendor has closed the gap with competition through its latest 64MP offering targeted at the high-end smartphone market. Considering Sony and Samsung, both have a strong presence in this segment, what is the opportunity for the vendor in this segment and the long term prospects?
- The production for this sensor is estimated to begin in Q4 2020 and could be featured in devices as soon as Q1 2021. Considering the premium positioning of the sensor, Which Smartphone Vendor would apply the sensor? And for what kind of camera application (main or multi) ?