Samsung developing new high energy density batteries and slimmer RWB camera sensors for mobiles

In its recently held special event, Samsung disclosed its detailed plans for offering improved batteries and camera sensors in its upcoming mobile devices. The new mobile batteries and camera sensors would be thinner in size and will pave way for the South Korean tech giant to offer much improved and slimmer smartphones and tablets to its customers. These new technologies would be made available on mobile devices the company would be releasing in 2017.

Batteries

Samsung is developing high energy density batteries. Battery having an energy density of 700Wh/l (Wh/l-Watt-hours per liter) is currently in the works. The company is expecting to increase it to 750Wh/l by 2016 and 780Wh/l by 2017. Since the energy density will increase, the new batteries will be thinner compared to present day batteries for the same capacity. Or to put it in another way, a battery with the same dimensions will pack higher energy compared to the current one.

Samsung is also trying to get a higher voltage from the batteries, expecting to get 4.40V in the next few months and increasing it to 4.5V by 2017 which will contribute towards a better battery life. Besides enhancing the energy density and voltage of batteries, the company disclosed that it is also working to improve its fast charging-technology to allow users to charge 80% of the battery in 30 minutes.

Camera Sensors    

Samsung also announced details about the new camera sensors it is developing for mobile devices.  It is the new RWB camera sensor, RWB standing for Red, White, Blue, which is the color pattern of the sensor. The RWB sensor will provide “better color fidelity” to the photos.

The new camera sensors will have pixel size of only 1 micron compared to the current industry standard of 1.2 microns resulting in a decrease in thickness from 6.5mm to 5mm for a 16MP sensor and from 5.2mm to 4.5mm for a 13MP sensor. So the new camera sensors will be thinner. Smaller pixel size can deteriorate the image quality but Samsung is sure to come up with a solution for that just like Nokia and Sony did.

With the new enhancements Samsung is working on, its future mobile devices are sure to offer users a better image quality and an improved battery life.

Samsung developing new high energy density batteries and slimmer RWB camera sensors for mobiles

Sony Struggling to Meet Demand for Manufacturing Camera Sensors Orders from Other Mobile Companies

In a report released by Pan Jiutang, a Chinese IT analyst, it seems like Sony is having difficult time in fulfilling camera sensor orders coming from Chinese smartphone makers. Apart from Chinese smartphone markers, it seems like Apple is also ordering some of the camera sensors for iPhone 6c from Sony too. As a result, Sony can only meet about half of the demand for the Chinese smartphone makers with the rest of its output go to Apple. It seems like the camera sensors for iPhone 6c is already in productions.

One of Chinese smartphone manufacturers, Huawei, apparently only able to ship 50% of its devices which equipped with Sony cameras from the original order that the company plans to ship. ZTE, Oppo and Coolpad, on the other hand, only manage to ship about 10% to 30% of their original orders.  These companies apparently have to find other companies such as Samsung, Toshiba or OmniVision to fulfill the rest of the order.  HTC, even though it is not a Chinese company, apparently has approach Toshiba to manufacture the camera sensors for its HTC One M9.

It seems like manufacturers normally will prioritize the order productions based on the clients’ size and its order numbers. As a result, being top players in the smartphone industry definitely have an advantage over smaller players.

Sony Struggling to Meet Demand for Manufacturing Camera Sensors Orders from Other Mobile Companies

Details of Sony’s new APCS (Active Pixel Color Sampling) Sensor Leaked

Leaked documents from the Chinese site cnbeta.com indicate that Sony has developed a new APCS (Active Pixel Color Sampling) Sensor, which is the first such sensor in the world that is able to capture the complete color spectrum information in a single pixel. This is a 1.5-inch sensor and Sony is likely to introduce it in the beginning of 2015 in some video camera, may be in Sony’s next flagship device.

Camera technology has developed at a fast pace in the past few years and Sony had always been ahead in it. At present Sony is using 20.7MP Exmor RS sensor in its flagship smartphones. However, cnbeta.com has now published images of documents giving detailed diagrams and specs of the new APCS sensor developed by Sony.

In the APCS or Active Pixel Color Sampling Sensor, each pixel sensor senses the three colors – Red, Green and Blue with its moving electronic color filter resulting in higher frame rates, greater color range and enhanced light sensitivity, but low battery usage.

The leaked documents show the details of 1.5-inch sized 4.8MP sensor that can record 2K videos at 16,000 fps (frames per second). 4K resolution video can be recorded at just 240 fps. Since each pixel records the full color spectrum, the sensor can take a color HDR (High dynamic range) image with every shot and the processor won’t have to interpret individual colors.

1. Following is the datasheet of Sony IMX189AEG 1.5-inch 4.85MP image sensor featuring APCS posted by cnbeta.com. This stacked sensor has rectangular 9.78um x 4.89um pixels and electronic global shutter. This is the world’s first High speed and high sensitivity CMOS image sensor with APCS.

2. cnbeta.com has posted another stacked sensor 1MP IMX197HSK with 9.78um unit pixel with electronic global shutter.

3. Structure 1: This figure shows a horizontally moving color filter at the top of the sensor. There are three different exposures for each of the three colors-Red, Green and Blue (RGB), giving a color HDR image instead of a dynamic range HDR one.

4. Structure 2: Shows the circuit diagram of the IMX189AEG Sensor.

5. The following figure shows the Dynamic Range Photosensibility Graph. Native ISO of the sensor is 5120 and its dynamic rangeat that setting is 127.69DB which is pretty impressive.

 

Source Sony Alpha Rumors

Via Android Headlines

Details of Sony’s new APCS (Active Pixel Color Sampling) Sensor Leaked