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Smartphone camera in use

As if the makers of standalone cameras don't have enough problems holding off smartphones, Sony has just announced a sensor that has the potential to be notwithstanding another game changer for what'southward possible in mobile device photography. Its new design adds a layer of DRAM betwixt the pixel layer and the circuit layer. That allows it to capture and readout images several times faster than current designs.

Sony appear the new chip architecture at ISSCC this week, as the latest in its long line of innovations in sensor blueprint. The addition of on-lath DRAM will help solve at least three major bug with current smartphone cameras: rolling shutter artifacts, ho-hum-motility videos, and multi-image noise reduction artifacts. We'll look at each in turn.

A smashing band-aid for rolling shutter headaches

I trouble with depression-cost imagers, like those used in smartphones, is that they don't have a mechanical shutter. Their images are read out one piece at a time while the sensor is still actively recording data (called a rolling shutter). That means that objects moving at high speed announced distorted, like the locomotive in this illustrative example from Sony:

While the new sensor still has a rolling shutter, its high speed readout greatly reduces artifacts

While the new sensor yet has a rolling shutter, its loftier speed readout greatly reduces artifacts

On the left, the typical i/30s readout fourth dimension smears the profile of the moving locomotive. On the correct, while still technically a rolling shutter, the new chip'southward 1/120s readout fourth dimension greatly reduces the potential for distortion.

The new architecture adds a DRAM layer between the pixels and the circutry

The new architecture adds a DRAM layer between the pixels and the circuitry

While the additional DRAM layer looks pretty unproblematic in this block diagram, it changes the physics of the chip, and introduces additional opportunity for electrical noise. So far, the chip isn't in production, so it isn't possible to benchmark its real-globe performance. But Sony claims it has been able to solve the new noise problems.

Support for super-slow-move video and special effects

The DRAM besides allows the sensor to capture 1000fps video at 1080p Hard disk drive resolution. This makes for some very impressive super-slow-movement potential. By mixing high-frame-rate video with standard frame rate the chip also makes it possible to do some cool special effects correct in a smartphone, as you tin can meet in this Sony case video:

Wait tape-setting image quality results from this sensor

Less obvious, only perhaps most importantly, the 30fps readout of full-resolution 19.3MP images is perfect for the sophisticated multi-image noise reduction that'due south increasingly-mutual in high-end smartphones. For example, Google's HDR+ silently combines betwixt 3 and nine frames to create a single college-dynamic-range, lower-noise, terminal output prototype. That process can innovate artifacts if objects in the scene, or the camera, are moving. Past having the frames captured and read out more chop-chop, those artifacts tin be further reduced.

[Image credit: Pexels]