Phone Camera Light: Startup Innovations
- Teh future of smartphone cameras may lie in ditching traditional color filters.
- Samsung is set to incorporate its nano-prism technology into the front camera of Xiaomi's upcoming phone.
- Meanwhile, startups Eyeo and PxE Holographic Imaging are pioneering filter-free methods for capturing color images.
Revolutionize your mobile photography with groundbreaking phone camera light innovations. Discover how SamsungS nano-prism tech and filter-free image sensors from startups like Eyeo and PxE Holographic Imaging are transforming smartphone cameras. These technologies, leveraging cutting-edge physics, promise sharper images and improved low-light performance, even in Xiaomi phones, by optimizing how light reaches each pixel. Eyeo’s €15 million funding and PxE’s holocoder technology, integrating depth sensing with color imaging, highlight the exciting future of mobile imaging. Expect notable advances in security and augmented reality applications. News Directory 3 explores these exciting advancements. Discover what’s next for the future of mobile cameras!
Next-Gen Smartphone Cameras: Startups Eye Sharper Images
Updated May 26, 2025
Teh future of smartphone cameras may lie in ditching traditional color filters. While larger image sensors and lenses generally improve image quality, especially in resolving details, color filters block a meaningful amount of incoming light. new technologies aim to overcome this limitation by exploiting the physics of light.
Samsung is set to incorporate its nano-prism technology into the front camera of Xiaomi’s upcoming phone. This approach, which enhances light sensitivity by 25 percent, uses diffraction to gather more light for each color-specific pixel, improving low-light performance.
Meanwhile, startups Eyeo and PxE Holographic Imaging are pioneering filter-free methods for capturing color images. Eyeo, an Imec spinoff, recently secured €15 million in seed funding.PxE Holographic Imaging showcased its technology, which integrates depth sensing and color imaging, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this year.
Yoav Latzky, founder and CEO of PxE, emphasized the compatibility of both PxE and Eyeo’s technologies wiht CMOS sensors, the prevalent image sensors in modern cameras. He noted the worldwide desire for more photons to reach CMOS sensors.
Eyeo’s technology, stemming from Imec’s research, targets consumer electronics and security applications. By eliminating color filters, Eyeo’s image sensor achieves three times the sensitivity of conventional CMOS sensors, according to Eyeo CEO.
Eyeo’s image sensor employs vertical waveguides to split light based on wavelength, directing photons to the appropriate pixel. these waveguides enable pixel sizes to shrink to less than 0.5 micrometers. The technology also aligns better with human eye color sensitivity than current filter-based imagers, according to Imec research.
Jeroen Hoet, Eyeo CEO, said the color splitting technology is designed for existing CMOS foundries. The company is currently focused on ensuring compatibility with customer systems.
Hoet anticipates initial adoption in security systems and augmented reality devices, were compact, sensitive sensors are crucial. However,he sees significant potential for these next-gen smartphone cameras.
PxE’s technology uses a “holocoder,” a diffractive material layer, to create color images and act as a depth sensor.When white light passes through the holocoder, it generates an interference pattern recorded by the sensor. PxE’s algorithms reconstruct a virtual 3D image and extract color information from this pattern.
Berlatzky described PxE’s hardware as “less exotic” than other approaches, with much of its capability derived from software. He explained that the algorithm reconstructs what the camera sees in terms of depth and image by reversing the physics of light.
Like eyeo, PxE envisions its image sensor being used in applications that currently employ separate depth and image sensors, such as cars and smartphones, improving image quality and enabling new features.
What’s next
As these technologies mature, expect to see next-gen smartphone cameras offering enhanced low-light performance and improved image quality without sacrificing light sensitivity. The advancements promise to revolutionize mobile photography and other applications requiring advanced imaging capabilities.