Daiwa: The More the Merrier: Multi-Cameras Trend in Smartphones

Taiwan branch of Daiwa Capital Markets publishes report "The more the merrier: multi-cameras are the next mega trend in smartphones" dated by Oct. 2018. Few charts and tables form the report:

Triple Cameras Technology challenges, according to Daiwa:

• Calibration. The cameras need to be carefully calibrated for optical properties of a triple aperture system. The calibration consists of recovering camera parameters, location and orientation for external parameters and focal lengths for internal parameters. In addition, the calibration should be completed in the camera manufacturing line for numerous tests on any dynamic physical changes, such as temperature variances and drop test.
• Firmware/algorithm. A triple-cam system demands more complexity on the firmware side as the framework in a triple-cam system will have to deal with each of the 3 cameras to operate as one integrated camera. In addition, algorithms would have the same challenges to ensure reasonable processing run time and also maintain zero distortion of the image quality from multiple inputs.
• Power consumption. The complex algorithm and firmware, which require more processing power in power management, frame request and memory management, could lead to higher power consumption for the entire camera system (camera + processing platform).