Spectricity (Flanders) brings true color to smartphone pics
Spectricity is in the business of letting your true colors shine through – and you can take that literally. A spinoff of Flanders’ nanotech research center imec, the company from Mechelen has launched the world’s first miniature multispectral image sensor for smartphones. Going by the name of S1, it is a technological breakthrough that will enhance the color fidelity of cameras in smartphones and other devices. Not only is it the first miniaturized, mass-manufacturable mobile spectral image sensor; it also captures the full visible and near-infrared range at video rates required for mobile applications.
A phenomenal advance
The new S1 multispectral image sensor is well suited as a companion sensor to the main cameras in a smartphone. The first smartphones using the sensor are expected to be on the market by 2024. Moreover, the innovative technology is anticipated to be present in all newly manufactured smartphones within just two years.
The S1 marks a phenomenal advance over any multispectral imager on the market. To date, no one else has managed to fit these specs into a miniature chip.
Color fidelity
Up until now, smartphones can’t capture true colors despite all the advances in image-sensor and camera technology. Limited by three color channels (red, green and blue), the automatic white balancing algorithms in smartphone cameras often struggle to resolve the white point of a scene accurately, which can cause them to get the colors wrong. With spectral imaging, however, the poor camera color fidelity of smartphones and consumer devices is bound to become a thing of the past.
Essentially, even your high-end smartphone camera is color blind. The S1, however, uses richer spectral signature data, resulting in much higher color fidelity in your pictures. We are confident that spectral imaging will become a crucial component in all devices that include a camera.
Learn more about nanotech and digital innovation in Flanders.
Reported by
Spectricity
