Xiaomi files patent for dual in-display selfie camera

It’s not just Samsung which is working round the clock for a camera that can work through a display, a new report has claimed that Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has filed a patent for in-display camera technology. The company first teased the in-display cameras plans on Twitter earlier this year.

The patent has been granted to Xiaomi on September 30 by the CNIPA (China National Intellectual Property Administration). The patent describes and shows designs for a smartphone with dual cameras under the display.

With these advancements in a display, OEM soon won’t require to make design notches, hole punches, or pop-up modules to maximize screen-to-body ratio. While this technology works through a transparent display, however, smartphone makers are working to find a way to maximize the camera quality as the images might get affected by the obtrusion of the display panel. While the technology itself is in a nascent stage right now, we can expect in-display cameras somewhere towards the middle and lower range smartphones, before they finally appear on higher-end flagships.

Xiaomi is also reported to launch four phones this year that will come with 108MP image sensors developed by Samsung. The four 108MP phones are codenamed ‘tucana’, ‘draco’, ‘umi’, and ‘cmi’ and could belong to either the Mi or the Redmi brand. The devices are expected to succeed in the Mi Mix 3.

In September, South Korean giant Samsung announced its 108MP image sensor that is called ISOCELL Bright HMX. These sensors are 0.8μm in size and allow users to click DSLR-like pictures from smartphones. The sensor packs a smart ISO mechanism that allows it to click good pictures both in low light as well as in the bright environment by automatically adjusting the illumination of the environment.

Being the first mobile image sensor to adopt a large 1/1.33-inch size, the HMX can absorb more light in low-lit settings than smaller sensors and its pixel-merging Tetracell technology allows the sensor to imitate big-pixel sensors, producing bright 27MP images. For advanced filming, the HMX supports video recording without losses in field-of-view at resolutions up to 6K (6016 x 3384) 30-frames-per-second (fps).