At the International Solid-State Circuits Conference this week, Sony took the time to reveal the first 3-layer stacked CMOS sensor (with DRAM) for smartphones ever, which has the potential to lend itself to some amazing leaps in mobile photography.

This new sensor can deliver faster readout speeds thanks to the added DRAM layer that sits between the pixel and circuit sections. This allows the sensor to read a single still image of 19.3 million pixels in 1/120 of a second. Since smartphones don't have mechanical shutters to control exposure time, the technology presented here will really help with reducing the focal plane distortion that occurs when capturing those pesky fast-moving objects.

Another added benefit of the readout speed is that it allows the sensor to capture super slow motion videos with a very high framerate (1000fps at 1080p). Since the DRAM temporarily stores both normal and high speed files and outputs them at a standard rate, a conventional image signal processor can be used. All of this makes it possible to record movies that combine regular speed and super slow motion for some fantastic, dramatic effects.

This sensor is touted as eight times faster than the Sony IMX318, which is the benchmark due to it having the same pixel count as this new one. I find it very likely that we will see it behind the camera lenses of many flagship smartphones to come.

Check out the source link below if you're interested in some further, finer details.