iPhone 8 Ambient Light Sensor

SystemPlus publishes reverse enginering report of ams ambient light sensor found in iPhone 8:

"ams AG is a long-time supplier for Apple’s iPhone and has the biggest share of the ambient light sensor (ALS) market.

By introducing the RGBC sensor into high-end smartphones, ams has placed a key milestone leading to the next-generation, true-color sensor inside the iPhone X.

ams’ iPhone 8 color sensor is located at the phone’s front, sharing the flex PCB with the proximity sensor and the front camera module. The sensor is integrated in a 6-pin LGA package with dimensions 2.85 mm x 2.61 mm x 0.53 mm.

For the iPhone 8, Apple chose to continue its partnership with ams, but with a next-generation ALS that allows for detecting a wider range of wavelengths (color and infrared). The uniqueness of this color sensor lies in the organic material used for certain filters, which involves a more complex process. The die design has also changed, with around 4x more photodiodes than the ALS in the iPhone 6S or 7, and there’s a circular arrangement for the sensing part which improves sensing ability. The central filter region is for the infrared sensor, and the color sensors are positioned around it. They are composed of organic color filters and interferometric filters."