Samsung is planning to get rid of the selfie cameras placed in the conventional notch, pop-up module, or the hole inside the screen entirely with its upcoming under-display camera module. Korean news portal The Elec reported that the chaebol plans to implement this radical new technology in a smartphone by 2020. Samsung is reportedly calling this camera technology Under Display Camera (UDC). It’s worth mentioning that the Chinese tech giants Xiaomi and OPPO have already displayed their implementation of such technology earlier this year.
The next-gen Galaxy Fold smartphone could have an under-display camera module
The report suggests that the South Korean tech giant aims to reduce movable components and cutouts with the under-display camera sensor. It will be placed in a transparent section underneath the screen that houses the punch-hole camera sensor on some of its current devices. Under the normal usage conditions, this transparent section will blend in with the display. When the front camera is used this portion will blackout allowing light to enter the lens below it.
The tech that will implement UDC is allegedly called HiAA (Hole in Active Area). Samsung already has one of this equipment called HiAA1, which it utilised to produce the screens of this year’s flagship smartphones. Now it has received the first HiAA2 equipment that it will use for UDC displays. The report suggests that Samsung has decided to put the latest HiAA2 equipment in the A4 plan at its Asan Campus, Chungnam, this month. The brand will start mass production in early next year.
The A4 plant is capable of producing 30,000 components for UDC tech per month. So it’s unlikely that we will see the UDC tech on the upcoming Galaxy S11 flagship. Instead, it could be present on the successor to the Galaxy Fold, suggests the source. This makes sense as the brand produces Galaxy S series flagships in millions of quantities, and limited units of the foldable devices. It’s worth mentioning that popular gadget tipster claims that both the Galaxy S11 and Galaxy Fold 2 will not utilise the under-display camera tech, so we will have wait and watch.
Its worth mentioning that Samsung is still facing technical difficulties with the UDC tech. Because, despite being transparent, the OLED panels still distort a certain amount of light that comes to the camera, reducing the image quality. Samsung is reportedly trying to overcome the challenge by ensuring that the OLED panels are as transparent as possible and developing software to minimise distortion.