The Sony IMX586 stacked CMOS image sensor may not sound particularly thrilling, but this new camera module could have big implications for the firm’s smartphones.
Sony has a strong heritage in cameras, however in recent years the cameras on its flagship smartphones haven’t quite hit the same illustrious heights as rivals – but that could be about to change.
The new image sensor claims to be the world’s first 48MP smartphone camera, and it also features an industry-leading pixel size of 0.8μm.
What does this mean? In short, enhanced images from your smartphone’s camera.
Sony’s smartphone division continues to turn in unimpressive performance, but the company remains the market leader in image sensors. Its latest design, the IMX586, promises a leap in image quality by dramatically increasing the resolution to 48 effective megapixels (8000 x 6000), which Sony says is the highest pixel count in the industry.
Image quality isn’t simply a matter of adding more megapixels — that can be counterproductive, with smaller pixels leading to noisy photos in low light. The 0.8-micron pixels used in this sensor will be the smallest on the market, in fact. But Sony says it’ll get around this by using a quad Bayer color filter array and allowing each pixel to use signals from the four adjacent pixels, which supposedly raises light sensitivity to the equivalent of a 12-megapixel image captured with 1.6-micron pixels
Phones from Nokia’s 808 PureView in 2012 to this year’s Huawei P20 Pro have experimented with similar pixel-binning techniques on sensors with 40 megapixels or more, but Sony’s IMX586 is likely to be a more mainstream solution. Sony is keeping the size down to 8mm diagonal, meaning there won’t be the need for a huge camera bump, though the lens in front of the sensor will of course play a big part in the camera’s ability to resolve an image. The focus is also on producing usable 48-megapixel images rather than downsampling by default — this might not be incredibly useful for everyday snaps, but it should at least allow for much better digital zoom.
You can expect to see the IMX586 on smartphones next year; Sony is planning to start shipping samples this September, with a unit price of ($27) each.
Is it best to have a high-resolution smartphone camera sensor or a lower-resolution one with better light sensitivity? Sony says you can have both with its latest stacked CMOS image sensor. The IMX586 has the “industry’s highest pixel count” with 48 megapixels, bettering high-end cameras like its own A7R III, all squeezed into a phone-sized 8.0 mm diagonal unit. At the same time, four adjacent pixels can be added together during low light shooting, yielding a 12-megapixel sensor that delivers “bright, low noise images,” Sony said.
Putting 48 megapixels on a chip that size yields a 0.8 micron pixel pitch, which would normally give you high resolution but poor nighttime shooting capability. However, Sony’s “Quad Bayer” color filter array can also merge four pixels into one. That yields an effective pixel pitch of 1.6 micrometers, significantly better than Google’s Pixel 2 XL (1.4 microns), one of the best low-light smartphone cameras out there.
Quad Bayer sounds much like the “Pixel Fusion” tech used by Huawei in its P20 Pro smartphone. It reportedly uses Sony’s 40-megapixel IMX600 to deliver high resolution images, but can also join four pixels together to create a 10-megapixel sensor with much better light-gathering capability.
Sony’s signal processing tech also allows fast output speeds and dynamic range “four times greater than conventional products.” To wit, it would let you record 4K (4,096 x 2,160) video at 90 fps, and 1080p at a time-stopping 240 fps.
Sony, which spun off its image sensor division in 2015, currently dominates sensor sales for both smartphones and premium DSLR/mirrorless cameras. Last quarter, it vowed to maintain that position by spending up to $9 billion developing new tech. First samples of the 48-megapixel chip will arrive in September 2018, but Sony generally reserves new sensors for its own devices — so you might see it appear first in Sony’s Xperia XZ line of premium smartphones.