ams launches most advanced spectral ALS sensor for next-generation premium smartphone camera performance boost

News Facts:

1. First to market with spectral ambient light sensor for high-end mobile phones
2. Only the AS7350 provides precise light-source identification and enables accurate white-point balancing in all lighting conditions
3. Sophisticated ams sensor technology helps mobile phone manufacturers achieve valuable differentiation, for example by outperforming in crucial camera reviews

Las Vegas, NV (January 9, 2020) — ams (SIX: AMS), a leading worldwide supplier of high-performance sensor solutions, today launches the AS7350, the market’s most advanced spectral ambient light sensor (ALS) for high-end mobile phone cameras. The new sensor enables the high-best quality images even in situations with extreme color contrast, or under non-ideal/mixed light source conditions, enabling professional grade photography using a consumer device. For the first time, the AS7350 achieves this by enabling light source identification via spectral reconstruction to achieve unprecedented automatic white-point balancing accuracy under any light conditions.
Driven by Consumers’ desires for more advanced camera capabilities, mobile phone vendors continuously focus on differentiating by improving picture quality.  Whether sharing videos on social media or capturing that perfect scenic shot, photography enabled from premium camera functionality is today’s killer application in smartphones and a major point of market differentiation for mobile phone manufacturers. Driven by consumer demand for more advanced camera capabilities, mobile phone vendors continuously focus on differentiating their devices by improving picture quality. By choosing the premium AS7350 spectral ALS sensor, OEMs have a competitive advantage that can help maximize sales and limit competitive market risk.
By accurately identifying ambient light conditions, the AS7350 enables unparalleled image quality even in high color contrast scenes, and helps vendors continue on the path to delivering professional-grade camera quality in mobile devices.
Reiner Jumpertz, VP and General Manager of the Color & Spectral Sensors business line at ams, says, “For many consumers, camera performance is the decisive factor in choosing a premium mobile phone: they research the models deeply, guided by professional tests and user reviews. In what we believe is a turning point for professional picture quality using consumer devices, smartphone vendors can now use the AS7350 spectral ALS to detect and identify ambient light sources to obtain extremely accurate white balance information – above and beyond normal RGB sensors – thereby delivering world-class picture quality to their customers.“

Understanding the perfect photographic scene via light source identification

Professional photographers understand the effects of different illumination sources on the quality of photographs and its color rendering. White-point balancing, compensating the image’s treatment of color for the distorting effects of ambient light is one of the core functions of advanced photography. Providing advanced white-point balancing capabilities to consumer devices enables capabilities previously reserved for the professional camera market.
The AS7350 identifies any type of light source, including daylight, incandescent, fluorescent, all types of LEDs, and any combination thereof. The market’s most advanced spectral ambient light sensor features 11 channels, 8 equally spaced in the visible, 1 flicker, 1 NIR, and 1 clear channel, all in a tiny 3.1mm x 2.0mm x 1.0mm LGA package. The flicker channel detects artificial light sources with flicker frequencies from 50 Hz – 3 kHz and beyond, depending on implementation.
ams supports users of the AS7350 with a full enablement suite. The AS7350 will be available for sampling in first quarter of 2020.