Surprise: Samsung has a new camera sensor for its next flagships after all

Virtually all smartphone cameras on the market use a rolling shutter to capture photos, but Samsung may have developed a new camera sensor that has “global shutter-level” capabilities.

Sisa Journal (h/t: Jukan on X) reports that Samsung has developed a smartphone camera sensor with global shutter-like capabilities. It’s believed that this tech could come to its next-generation Galaxy flagships. It’s unclear if the outlet is referring to the Galaxy S26 series, the Galaxy S27 family, or upcoming foldables.

Virtually all smartphone camera sensors use a rolling shutter, which gradually captures a scene by exposing one line of pixels at a time. By contrast, global shutters capture a scene by exposing all pixels simultaneously. This approach means global shutters are better at capturing moving subjects, while also reducing subject warping compared to rolling shutters. However, camera sensors with global shutters typically have a low resolution as the technology requires very large pixels.

Samsung’s new camera sensor still uses a rolling shutter, but apparently achieves “global shutter-level” performance thanks to a new pixel structure and an “optical flow” algorithm to compensate for motion. The camera sensor is said to have 1.5-micron pixels and a 12MP resolution.

The outlet also shed more light on this new pixel structure, saying that an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is now embedded in the pixels themselves. On other smartphone camera sensors, the sensor’s analog output is sent to an ostensibly separate ADC to be converted into digital signals. We’re guessing that locating the ADC inside the pixels speeds up conversion time and therefore enables faster capture.

“The structure is such that four pixels share one ADC, so only the 2×2 pixels can operate sequentially like a rolling shutter, and the rest can operate as a global shutter,” a Samsung Electronics source told Sisa Journal.

The sensor’s 12MP resolution suggests that this won’t be used as the main camera of flagship Galaxy phones, which typically use 50MP or 200MP sensors. That’s a shame if you’re still noticing shutter lag on your Galaxy S25 Ultra‘s primary camera. However, I imagine that this could be a good fit for the ultrawide or 3x camera, allowing these lenses to freeze fast-moving subjects.