In April 2020, Samsung announced its ambitious plan to develop a 600MP camera capable of capturing more detail than the human eye. While that goal remains a distant vision, the company may be steadily making progress. Reports suggest the Korean firm is now working on a 500MP sensor as a step toward realizing its ultimate objective.
Samsung is working on a 500MP smartphone camera
When Samsung revealed the idea of a camera that can surpass the human eye — our eyes are said to match a resolution of around 500MP — the company hadn’t even introduced a 200MP camera. Its highest resolution camera was a 108MP sensor. It has since launched multiple 200MP cameras. While the Korean tech behemoth may not have gone beyond that in over three years, it appears to be working toward the goal behind the scenes.
In late 2021, Samsung shared technical details about how it plans to achieve such a high resolution (576MP or higher). Since then, there have been multiple reports about the company working on 250MP, 300MP, 440MP, and now, 500MP cameras. These reports suggest it is regularly developing and testing new cameras with high-resolution sensors. The ultimate goal is a 600MP or at least a 576MP camera.
The latest report from X leaker @Jukanlosreve suggests Samsung intends to use this 500MP camera in Galaxy smartphones. However, it may be suitable for many other product categories, including self-driving cars. More details should emerge in the coming months. The company previously said it plans to launch a high-resolution camera in 2025.
Meanwhile, Samsung is also developing a “3-layer stacked” camera for Apple. It features a PD-TR-Logic configuration: a stack consisting of a photodiode (PD) to capture light, a transfer layer (TR) to reduce noise, and a logic layer for advanced processing. This sensor is allegedly more advanced than Sony’s existing Exmor RS. Apple could use it as the main camera in its future iPhones.
