Another brand is here with 1-inch camera sensor to challenge Samsung’s ISOCELL

While Samsung popularized ultra-high-resolution camera sensors in smartphones, Sony, its primary rival, went the other way. The Japanese firm focused on launching bigger sensors, like 1-inch format sensors used in most Chinese flagship phones. Samsung still hasn't launched any 1-inch ISOCELL camera sensor, and OmniVision has now come up with its first 1-inch camera sensor.

OmniVision, which used to be popular in the previous decade, got left behind by Samsung and Sony in recent years. However, the company is now back in the race by launching the OV50X, its flagship sensor. It is a 1-inch camera sensor with 50MP resolution and 1.6µm pixels (before pixel binning). Moreover, it supports 4-in-1 pixel binning, resulting in 12.5MP resolution with 3.2µm pixels, at a whopping 180fps.

The company claims that the OV50X has the highest dynamic range in the industry and can record “movie-grade” videos. OmniVision also claims that its new sensor offers close to 110dB of dynamic range, which the company claims is the highest possible in the smartphone form factor. It can also perform 3-channel HDR at 60fps.

The OV50X can record 8K videos in HDR using its Dual Analog Gain (DAG) HDR technology. It captures high-gain frames to boost the shadows and low-gain frames to preserve details in the highlights. Then, it merges those frames to create the ones with details in both highlights and shadows. This method reduces artifacts that generally appear while using multi-frame fusion HDR.

OmniVision's new camera sensor also features Quad Phase Detection (QPD) autofocus for fast and reliable focusing in varied lighting conditions while offering 100% coverage.

The company says smartphone brands are currently evaluating its new flagship camera sensor. The sensor's mass production will start in the third quarter of this year and could start appearing in smartphones that launch by the end of this year. It will compete with Sony's 1-inch sensors and Samsung's 200MP and 50MP sensors.

In the past, rumors claimed that Samsung's System LSI division is working on at least two 1-inch camera sensors, but the company never launched such sensors. So, it is likely that the firm cancelled those sensors or those rumors had no basis in reality. Samsung is focused on 50MP and 200MP camera sensors, and they are being used by several brands for ultrawide and telephoto cameras.