Smartphone Cameras Get Major HDR Leap With Sony’s First LOFIC Sensor

Sony has announced its first LOFIC image sensor, the Lytia 910. LOFIC stands for Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor.

The technology helps solve the issue of photodiodes becoming saturated by too much light by placing a capacitor next to each diode.

This increases the full well capacity of each pixel, which should help smartphone cameras get a major leap in High Dynamic Range (HDR) quality.

Single-Exposure HDR

According to Sony, the Lytia 910 offers 100dB of dynamic range with a single exposure. By comparison, a sensor like the Lytia 901 needs multi-frame exposure to reach 100dB. The Sony Lytia 910 also supports Triple Conversion Gain HDR.

This means each pixel is read three times with low, mid, and high conversion gain. The three readouts are then combined into one HDR image.

Fewer HDR Issues

The single-exposure approach helps the sensor avoid common issues linked to multi-frame HDR, including motion artifacts.

The sensor takes one exposure but gets three readouts from it. This also makes it useful for HDR video. The Lytia 910 can capture 4K 60fps HDR video.

LOFIC sensors are also less affected by flickering light sources, which is why they are used in automotive cameras.

Low-Light Improvements

Sony has also added Ultra High Conversion Gain circuits to the sensor. These circuits activate when there is not enough light.

Sony says they help reduce random noise by around 30% compared to its previous sensors.

The Sony Lytia 910 is a 1/1.28-inch sensor with 50MP resolution. It uses a Quad Bayer filter and has 1.22µm x 1.22µm pixels.

Other LOFIC Sensors

The Lytia 910 is not the first LOFIC sensor. In 2024, the Honor Magic6 Ultimate used a 50MP OV50K LOFIC sensor from OmniVision.

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra also uses another 50MP LOFIC sensor, the Light Fusion 1050L from OmniVision.

Which Phones Will Get it?

A recent report claimed that the vivo X500 Pro Max will use a 50MP 1/1.28-inch LOFIC sensor from Sony. Samsung is also working on LOFIC sensors, and its first one may appear with the Galaxy S27 Ultra.

Digital Chat Station also reported last year that Sony would release a 1/1.3-inch LOFIC sensor.

Mass production of the Lytia 910 will start this summer. The new sensor is expected to appear in smartphones launching in the fourth quarter.