 |
| Back Cameras of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra |
For years, a frustrating ghost has haunted smartphone photography: the blurry, distorted action shot. Whether it's a child's soccer goal, a pet mid-zoom, or a fast-moving vehicle, the result is often a warped, slanted mess. This artifact, a hallmark of the "rolling shutter" used in every phone camera, has been a stubborn limitation. According to a new wave of reports, however, Samsung has engineered a breakthrough that could make this problem a relic of the past.
The South Korean tech giant is developing a new camera sensor with "global shutter-level" capabilities, a technology that captures an entire scene in a single, frozen instant. While not a perfect global shutter, this innovation promises to dramatically reduce motion blur and distortion, potentially arriving with next-generation flagship Galaxy smartphones.
The Rolling Shutter Problem: Why Your Phone Can't Keep Up
To understand the leap, you must first know the flaw. Virtually every smartphone on the market uses a rolling shutter sensor. This mechanism works like a scanner: it captures an image by exposing and reading lines of pixels sequentially, from the top of the sensor to the bottom.
This process takes a few milliseconds. For a still subject, it's imperceptible. But if the subject or the camera is moving quickly during that scan, the scene changes between the capture of the top and bottom lines. The result is the all-too-familiar "jelly" or "warping" effect, where straight lines appear bent and fast-moving objects look slanted.
"Samsung does struggle with shutter lag more than, say, Google's Pixel lineup," notes a report from 9to5Google, highlighting a known pain point for Galaxy users. The quest to solve this has led engineers to the holy grail of action photography: the global shutter.
The Global Shutter Dream: Perfect, But Problematic
A true global shutter works as our eyes do: it sees and captures the entire frame at once, in a single moment. Every pixel on the sensor is exposed simultaneously, freezing motion perfectly without distortion. This is the technology used in high-end professional cameras for sports and cinema.
The catch? Implementing it in the tiny sensors of a smartphone has come at a severe cost: resolution. To function effectively, global shutter pixels need to be larger, which drastically limits how many can fit on a small chip. For manufacturers who have spent years marketing ever-higher megapixel counts, a low-resolution sensor has been a non-starter for flagship devices.
Samsung's Ingenious Hybrid: The Best of Both Worlds
Samsung's reported breakthrough lies in a clever engineering workaround. Instead of building a pure global shutter, the company has developed a modified rolling shutter sensor that mimics global shutter performance through a combination of redesigned hardware and intelligent software.
The core innovation is a revolutionary pixel structure. In standard sensors, analog light data from pixels is sent to a separate Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) chip. Samsung has embedded tiny ADCs directly into the pixels themselves, drastically speeding up the conversion process.
To manage space, four 1.5-micron pixels are bundled into a 2x2 group that shares one ADC. A Samsung official explained this hybrid approach: *"The structure is such that four pixels share one ADC; in this case, only the part corresponding to 2x2 operates sequentially like a rolling shutter, and the rest can operate as a global shutter."
Since this hybrid system isn't perfect, a final layer of software magic completes the picture. An "optical flow" algorithm analyzes the brightness changes of each pixel between exposures and mathematically compensates for any remaining motion distortion. The result, as stated by Samsung, is a "high-resolution image sensor with global shutter characteristics" at a very small pixel pitch.
A Flash from the Past: The Unexpected Comeback of Xenon
One of the most surprising potential benefits of this technology is something most thought was gone for good: the powerful Xenon flash. Modern smartphones use weak LED flashes because their rolling shutters are too slow to sync with the instantaneous, high-intensity burst of a Xenon strobe without creating dark bands across the image.
A sensor that captures all light simultaneously could perfectly synchronize with that split-second flash. This would allow users to freeze motion in complete darkness and even opens the door to using professional studio lighting techniques directly with a phone.
What This Means for Your Next Phone
While the technology is exciting, reports suggest its initial implementation may be modest. The sensor in development features a 12MP resolution with 1.5-micron pixels. This specification strongly suggests it won't debut as the primary, high-megapixel main camera. Instead, it is likely destined for an ultrawide or telephoto lens on future Galaxy flagships, where its motion-freezing prowess would be most valuable for dynamic shots.
The development also underscores a fierce behind-the-scenes race. Apple is also reportedly highly interested in bringing global shutter technology to its iPhones, and Samsung plans to present its findings at the prestigious International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in February 2026.
For consumers, the promise is clear: a future where your smartphone camera is as quick as your life. No more missing the perfect shot because of technical lag, no more bizarre distortions of fast action. As one industry observer put it, this tech could help Samsung solve "ongoing motion blur issues that have plagued Galaxy devices for ages now". It represents a fundamental shift from chasing pixel count to perfecting pixel performance, and that’s a development worth watching.
For the original report (in Korean) that sparked this wave of coverage, you can visit Sisa Journal.