Samsung CMOS

This is a list of Samsung's ISOCELL CMOS camera sensors, available for purchase by other companies, for a wide variety of products including mobile phones, computers, digital cameras and more.[1]

These sensors use one of the following pixel type technologies:

• FSI: frontside-illuminated. The light that reaches the photosensitive area is reduced because it needs to pass through multiple metal and dielectric layers.
• BSI: backside-illuminated. The light reaches the photosensitive area directly.
• ISOCELL: ISOCELL combines 3D-BSI with Front-side, Full-depth, Deep-Trench Isolation (F-DTI) and Vertical Transfer Gate (VTG). This provides increased light sensitivity and higher color fidelity even in poor lighting conditions.[2]
• ISOCELL Plus: ISOCELL Plus replaces ISOCELL's metal grid barriers with an innovative new material developed by Fujifilm. This minimizes optical loss and light reflection, providing higher color fidelity and up to a 15% enhancement in light sensitivity compared to ISOCELL.[3]

These sensors can be configured with one of the following chroma technologies:

• BW also known as Monochrome. No color filter array.
• RGB also known as Bayer filter or RGGB. Features a repeating 2×2 pattern with 1 red, 2 green and 1 blue pixels.
• Tetracell also known as Quad Bayer or 4-cell. Features a repeating 4×4 pattern with 4 red, 8 green and 4 blue pixels. For darker scenes, signal processing can combine data from each 2x2 group, essentially like a larger pixel. For brighter scenes, signal processing can convert the Tetracell into a conventional RGB filter to achieve 4x higher resolution. Resolution & pixel size listed below is after re-mosaic signal processing.[4]
• Nonacell. Similar to Tetracell, but with 3x3 groups and a 6×6 pattern with 9 red, 18 green and 9 blue pixels.

¹: The Galaxy S7 family utilizes either one of two sensors: the Samsung S5K2L1 or the Sony IMX260. They are regarded as nearly identical sensors.

²: The Galaxy S6 family and Note 5 utilizes either one of two sensors: the Samsung S5K2P2 or the Sony IMX240. They are regarded as nearly identical sensors.

³: The Xiaomi Mi 4C and Oneplus X utilize either one of two sensors: the Samsung S5K3M2 or the Sony IMX258. They are similar sensors, but the IMX258 is a newer unit.

⁴: The Galaxy S8 family utilizes either one of two sensors: the Samsung S5K2L2 or the Sony IMX333. They are regarded as nearly identical sensors.

⁵: The Xiaomi Mi 6 has two sensors. One of the two sensors is S5K3M3, another is Sony IMX386.

⁶: The Meizu Pro 6 family utilizes either one of two sensors: the Samsung S5K3M3 or the Sony IMX386, They are regarded as nearly identical sensors

⁷: The Xiaomi Mi Max 2 utilizes either one of two sensors: the Samsung S5K3M3 or the Sony IMX386. They are regarded as nearly identical sensors

⁸: The Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ utilizes either one of two sensors: the Samsung S5K2L3 or the Sony IMX345. Both feature stacked LPDDR4 DRAM in the CMOS sensor.

⁹: The Galaxy S8 family utilizes either one of two sensors: the Samsung S5K3H1 or the Sony IMX320. They are regarded as nearly identical sensors.

¹⁰: The Galaxy S10 family utilizes either one of two sensors: the Samsung S5K3J1 or the Sony IMX374. They are regarded as nearly identical sensors.

¹¹: The Galaxy S10 family utilizes either one of two sensors: the Samsung S5K2L4 or the Sony SAK2L4. They are regarded as nearly identical sensors.

¹²: The Galaxy Z Flip's ultra-wide camera utilizes the 16MP sensor, but images are cropped down to 12MP.