The Korean technology giant Samsung was among the first to manufacture a 100+ MP smartphone camera sensor.
Back in November 2019, the company partnered with Chinese electronics company Xiaomi and revealed the first 108MP.
Called the the ISOCELL Bright HM1. the company wanted to woo more people away from Apple's iPhone 11 Pro series and the Google Pixel 4 phone.
With the sensor, Xiaomi unveils the CC9 Pro and the Mi Note 10. Samsung followed with the Galaxy S20 Ultra with the sensor showcased at its main camera.
Here, Samsung wants to again break the barrier by attempting to create a 600MP camera sensor, in a bid to surpass human eyes.
As explained by Samsung's Executive Vice President Yongin Park in a blog post:
In the blog post, Park hinted "sensors that go beyond our senses," by suggesting that Samsung is "aiming for 600Mp for all."
To get there, he said, Samsung is developing ways to pack a high number of megapixels in increasingly smaller sensors. The company has been using ‘Nonacell technology’ to combine 9 pixels into one.
While he said that the industry had considered 0.8μm as the smallest possible size pixels could be reduced to, Samsung's engineers want to see that ‘technological limitations’ as just another challenge to motivate their innovation.
Until this date, major applications for image sensors have been in the smartphone field.
What Park is trying to say is that, Samsung also wants to venture beyond just high-megapixel sensors.
Park said that Samsung is also researching sensors that can detect wavelengths beyond the human eye’s capability: using ultraviolet light, for instance, to detect cancer cells, or infrared sensors for dark light photography. Those applications can be far more capable than using light waves method to detect oxygen levels in blood, for example.
Furthermore, the company also indicated that its research scientists would be working on sensors that can register smell or taste.
With companies like Samsung aiming to ramp up the game, the application of camera sensors is expected to expand into other rapidly-emerging fields such as autonomous vehicles, IoT and drones.
Park reiterated that the high megapixel count trend will continue through 2020 and beyond.