Stepping up Efforts to Develop Advanced Image Sensors
Samsung Electronics is closely trailing Sony, the No. 1 mobile image sensor maker. It is gradually narrowing the market share gap based on its micro-fabrication fine process technology and high-value-added products with more than 64 million pixels.
Samsung Electronics accounted for 16.7 percent of the global image sensor market in the third quarter of 2019, about 40 percentage points behind Sony (56.2 percent), according to market research firm Omdia. However, it narrowed the gap by posting 21.7 percent against Sony’s 42.5 percent in the second quarter of 2020.
Samsung Electronics was ranked second in the smartphone image sensor market with a 32 percent share in the first half of 2020, after Sony with 44 percent, said market research company Strategy Analytics (SA). Omni Vision, a Chinese company, had a 9 percent share.
SA’s survey focuses on the smartphone image sensor market, while the Omdia survey covers the overall image sensor market. Yet industry insiders say that SA’s survey results are encouraging for Samsung Electronics.
Image sensors produce images by converting light received through camera lenses into digital signals. "Image sensors go into smartphone cameras, black boxes for vehicles, self-driving cars, and augmented reality (AR) devices," an industry analyst said. "As image sensors are used in a wide array of sectors, they have big future growth potential."
Accordingly, Samsung Electronics is concentrating its efforts on developing image sensors in order to attain its goal of becoming the top player in system semiconductors after memory chips.
In February 2020, the company launched 180-megapixel mobile image sensor "ISOCELL Bright HM1," which is the industry's first image sensor produced with cutting-edge nanocell technology. In May, it also introduced “ISOCELL GN1,” a 1.2μm-based 50-megapixel mobile image sensor that supports ultra-fast auto-focusing functions at the digital single lens reflex (DSLR) level.
Since then, Samsung Electronics has unveiled four types of mobile image sensor products based on 0.7μm pixels in September, establishing an ultra-small image sensor lineup for the first time in the industry. Samsung Electronics is also planning to release 150 million, 250 million and 600 million pixel mobile image sensors in the future.