Teardown of the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge reveals some pretty slick camera tech

With the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge starting to find its way into users’ hands, everyone is excited to see how this puppy performs in the wild. And what’s the first thing you want to do when your brand new Galaxy S7 Edge arrives? Well, if you’re anything like the folks over at Chipworks, then your first instinct is to completely disassemble the device down to its core components and see how it ticks.

This teardown of the Galaxy S7 Edge reveals some pretty interesting specs under the hood, especially regarding the device’s cameras. New to the line is Dual pixel phase detection autofocus (PDAF) technology, which was previously used on the Canon EOS 70D DSLR. Samsung is adapting this technology to suit small-pixel mobile camera chips, so 100% of the main camera’s 12 MP active pixel array stays devoted to funneling data to the AF system. Although we still have to wait to see how the S7 and S7 Edge stack up against other devices in terms of image quality, the hardware we’re seeing for this camera seem to imply that it’s going to be quite the competitor.

The front-facing camera is a compact little device that’s module only measures 8mm x 7.2mm x 5mm. In spite of this, the 5 MP selfie snapper still packs a wallop, and Chipworks has confirmed that the chip has a pixel pitch of 1.34 µm, and the color filter array is Bayer-patterned.

The primary camera model looks to have an STMicroelectronics K2G2IS gyroscope to stabilize the image, and Chipworks further identified a number of other parts during this disassembly. The much-discussed Snapdragon 820 is revealed as the MSM8996, and it appears that Samsung, as expected, has used their own touch screen controller (part number S6SA552X) in the Galaxy S7 Edge.

To see all the gory details of this vivisection, head on over to Chipworks and dig through the S7 Edge’s guts. In the meantime, let us know what you think of this teardown in the comments below!