Samsung Unveils New 1/4-inch 5-Megapixel Image Sensor for Mobile Phones

Having a built-in camera on your cell phone has almost become standard nowadays. Among many announcements made at their sixth annual "Mobile Solutions Forum", Samsung released some information about an all new 1/4-inch image sensor designed specifically for use in mobile phones.

This 5-megapixel "SoC" (System-on-Chip) combines a CMOS image sensor with an image processor in the same unit. This offers mobile phone designers a compact bundle that will work perfectly for today's ever shrinking smart phones; which means a more compact phone for us, with loads of high-end features.

samsung_S5K4EA_sm.jpgSamsung boasts that this new sensor/processor configuration offers:
  • Adaptive dynamic range expansion
  • Anti-shake
  • Built-in Autofocus
  • Xenon flash
  • Mechanical or electronic rolling shutter
  • 1080p HD video capabilities @ 30fps
  • And is labeled both 'smart' and 'green' by Samsung due to its high-performance with minimal power requirements

These units are scheduled for mass production sometime in the first quarter of 2010. 


Please see the official Samsung press release below:



Samsung Drives 'Smart and Green' Vision at Sixth Annual Mobile Solutions Forum


Taipei, Taiwan, September 22, 2009 - Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor solutions, today held the sixth annual Samsung Mobile Solutions Forum at the Westin Taipei Hotel, where it highlighted major mobile device trends and shared insight into future mobile technologies.

Attended by more than 1,000 industry professionals including Samsung business partners and customers from handset, PDA and original design manufacturers, the annual event featured a "Smart and Green Mobility" theme that underscored the key milestones needed to be attained in improving component solutions for mobile devices.

"As a leader in international efforts toward greater ecological sustainability and 'green' awareness, Samsung Electronics is driving hard to further enhance the value to its products through the design of high-performance devices with minimal power requirements," said Dr. Oh-Hyun Kwon, president, Semiconductor Business, Samsung Electronics.

"Samsung 'smart' and 'green' solutions are designed to influence and transform people's lifestyles, while contributing to the greening of a wide range of information technology products entering the marketplace," he added.

Speakers at the forum provided insight into the smarter and greener components that will serve as the fundamental starting point for tomorrow's most advanced information technology and mobile devices. "The savviest companies will reconcile the inherent conflict between performance and power by pursuing continued innovation in both areas," Dr. Kwon went on to say.

New Samsung products unveiled at the forum included the world's fastest, low-power 1GHz application processor, a touch-embedded display driver IC (DDI), a quarter-inch 5-megapixel system-on-chip (SoC) image sensor, and a 65nm single-chip mobile TV channel decoder RF system-on-chip (SoC) compliant with China's prevailing mobile broadcasting standard. Samsung officials also announced production availability of key advanced memory solutions: a 60nm-class 512-Megabit (Mb) phase-change random access memory (PRAM) and a proprietary 1-Gigabit (Gb) OneDRAMTM chip based on fusion memory technology.

Forum speakers stressed that the technology advancements of system LSI (large scale integration) devices, market implementation of low-power core technologies, reduction in chip sizes and the availability of advanced memory products featuring combined performance and power efficiencies, will all contribute significantly to greater user mobility, without sacrificing performance or increasing power consumption.

Samsung said its "Smart and Green Mobility" technologies, together with a new Samsung green memory educational campaign, should also help to raise awareness of the potential for major power savings in servers and a wide range of other applications.


About Samsung Electronics

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2008 consolidated sales of US$96 billion. Employing approximately 164,600 people in 179 offices across 61 countries, the company consists of two business units: Digital Media & Communications and Device Solutions. Recognized as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com.