Samsung is preparing a 576MP camera sensor, but you'll have to wait a while

It may or may not come to your smartphone, though.

What you need to know

• Samsung has recently revealed its camera sensor roadmap at a summit in Europe.
• The roadmap indicates the company is planning to introduce a 576MP sensor to the market in four years.
• It's not clear whether the large image sensor will be baked into future smartphones.

Samsung looks set to push the envelope even further for camera sensors. The company is supercharging its imaging capabilities with a 576MP sensor that it plans to release in four years.

Haechang Lee, Samsung's senior vice president for automotive sensor, recently showcased the company's roadmap for image resolutions at the SEMI Europe Summit. The roadmap reveals its ambition to bring a 576MP sensor to the market by 2025, as spotted by Image Sensors World.

However, Samsung did not mention specific applications for that sensor. There are speculations that it could be used for autonomous vehicles, drones, and virtual reality. But that doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility of seeing such a large image sensor in mobile devices a few years from now.

Last year, Yongin Park, head of Samsung's sensor business team within the LSI division, revealed his team's work on a 600MP camera sensor capable of capturing more detail than the human eye. He noted in an editorial piece that the naked eye matches a resolution of around 500 megapixels.

In December, Samsung was also rumored to be working on a 600MP sensor for future smartphones. That's nearly six times the camera resolution of the Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G, which is one of the best Android phones.

The new revelation highlights the tech giant's growing effort in the megapixel wars. It recently unveiled the world's first 200MP camera sensor for smartphones with the new ISOCELL HP1. So, an image sensor three times larger than that might not be a far-fetched possibility a few years from now.

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