Author: Feng Ning
Some are quietly exiting, some are aggressively scaling up against the trend, and others are forging new paths. This dynamic of advances, retreats and a shifting landscape is unfolding intensely across the CIS arena.
In May 2026, Sony Semiconductor Solutions and the leading foundry TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) jointly announced that they have signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a joint venture in Japan, focusing on the R&D and manufacturing of next-generation image sensors.
At the earlier ISSCC 2025, Brillnics, in collaboration with Meta, completed and published a paper titled "A 400×400 3.24µm 117dB Dynamic Range 3 Layer Stacked Digital Pixel Sensor," introducing a three-layer stacked digital pixel sensor with a completely new architecture, bringing a differentiated technological path to the CIS industry.
On the other hand, some are turning to exit: in March last year, memory giant SK Hynix announced the shutdown of its CIS business division, transferring hundreds of employees entirely to the AI memory sector. Furthermore, multiple foundries have adjusted their capacity structures, redirecting part of their original CIS foundry capacity to the memory chip track.
Behind the strategic choices of different companies lies the latest trend in the CIS industry.
01 Why Is the Global CIS Leader Seeking Partnerships?
Looking at the global CIS industry, Sony is the undisputed leader.
According to the currently disclosed plan, Sony will hold a controlling stake in the joint venture and set up R&D and production lines within the newly built factory in Kumamoto. TSMC will be responsible for providing advanced process support and manufacturing capabilities. Both parties stated that the joint venture will adopt a phased investment model, advancing construction based on market demand, and may receive policy and financial support from the Japanese government.
This collaboration will combine Sony's advantages in sensor design with TSMC's advanced manufacturing processes to drive performance improvements in image sensors and expand into AI application fields such as automotive and robotics.
It is reported that Sony owns and operates its own chip production lines, but it is increasingly outsourcing part of its production tasks to TSMC. The reason behind this is that Sony, as a typical IDM (Integrated Device Manufacturer), integrates chip design, manufacturing, and packaging. However, facing the huge demand for chip performance and capacity for 6nm and 12nm process CIS required by the high-end smartphone market as well as high-end automotive and AI robotics, Sony's capacity has encountered a bottleneck.
TSMC perfectly fills this gap.
In the past, Sony's image sensors were mostly used in Apple iPhones. However, in October last year, South Korean media reported that Samsung Electronics' CIS has returned to Apple's supply chain after a decade, with Apple raising its initial wafer orders from 1,000 wafers per month to 4,000 wafers, representing a 300% increase. It is reported that Samsung's factory in Texas, USA, will supply this chip for Apple products such as the iPhone.
Supply chain analysis shows that Samsung's CIS has long been primarily for internal use, with only a small amount supplied externally (such as for Xiaomi flagship models). The most direct impact of this return is breaking Sony's exclusive monopoly on Apple's CIS supply and taking away its core market share.
Samsung's "return" is actually a strategic choice to cope with market squeeze. In recent years, Chinese mobile phone manufacturers have accelerated the domestic substitution of CIS, with local enterprises such as OmniVision and SmartSens becoming mainstream suppliers, directly compressing Samsung's external order space.
Samsung is also under pressure in non-mobile phone fields: Sony has seized the automotive CIS market relying on its technological accumulation; the security and surveillance field is dominated by SmartSens, OmniVision, and others; and Sony or OmniVision are the first choices for handheld smart imaging devices.
To consolidate the cooperation, Samsung is customizing 50-megapixel CIS products for Apple. Industry insiders revealed that Apple values stability more than short-term technological iteration, and given Samsung's technological reserves, there are no major obstacles to subsequent upgrades to 200 megapixels, paving the way for long-term cooperation.
02 A Large Number of Foundries Voluntarily Abandon CIS and Flock to Memory
While giants are high-profilely scaling up high-end CIS, the mid-to-low-end CIS foundry market is quietly witnessing an exit wave.
Currently, CIS chip foundry services can mainly be divided into two major categories: one is the IDM model manufacturers (such as Sony and Samsung) with their own design, manufacturing, and packaging and testing capabilities, serving their own products; the other is professional pure-play foundries, providing manufacturing services for CIS design companies (such as OmniVision, SmartSens, GalaxyCore, etc.).
Since 2025, multiple wafer fabs have adjusted their layouts simultaneously: shrinking and divesting CIS capacity, and turning to scale up in the memory chip track.
Among them, SK Hynix's transformation is the most representative.
In March last year, SK Hynix made a major decision, officially announcing the closure of its CIS chip business division and transferring the department's employees entirely to the AI memory sector. This move has attracted widespread attention in the industry. In 2023, SK Hynix's market share in CIS had dropped to 4%, ranking sixth globally, with an annual revenue of approximately $870 million and long-term sluggish profitability. Especially against the backdrop of slowing growth in the smartphone market, its revenue further shrank. Since entering the CIS market through acquisition in 2008, although it once launched the "Black Pearl" brand and provided sensors for Samsung's Galaxy series, it has continuously reduced investment in recent years, with R&D expenditure and wafer capacity in 2023 halved compared to 2022.
Facing the explosive demand for AI memory, SK Hynix considers this the core of future growth, and closing the CIS department can concentrate resources to consolidate its leading position in the AI chip field.
Not only Korean manufacturers, mature process foundries in Taiwan, China are also making choices.
In January this year, CIS manufacturer Jingxiang Optoelectronics received notice from wafer foundry PSMC that the latter would stop accepting orders for some of its main products starting from Q2 this year.
It is reported that the reason for PSMC's decision lies in the adjustment of operational strategy, as it will focus on technologies such as memory and power management.
Half a month prior to this, Micron and PSMC signed an exclusive letter of intent under which Micron plans to acquire PSMC’s P5 wafer fab located in Tongluo, Miaoli County, Taiwan, China. The transaction is expected to be completed in the second quarter of this year. In addition to the fab transaction, Micron will reserve advanced back-end packaging foundry capacity for HBM from PSMC, and assist PSMC in refining niche DRAM process technology at its P3 fab in Hsinchu.
Under the AI boom, the capacity crowding-out effect is becoming increasingly severe.
The market share vacated by TSMC and PSMC is flowing in large quantities into the hands of OmniVision, GalaxyCore, and SmartSens, bringing a rare market window of opportunity for domestic manufacturers.
03 Meta, Why Make a Sensor?
Against the broader backdrop of industry polarization and capacity reallocation, Meta's entry into the CIS field appears particularly unique.
Meta has long been deploying in the metaverse, VR/AR, and humanoid robots. Off-the-shelf general-purpose sensors struggle to meet the customized computing, imaging and power consumption requirements of Meta’s products. Traditional CIS is mainly designed for consumer photography, generally suffering from high latency, weak algorithm adaptability, and fixed architecture. Meta's self-developed three-layer stacked sensor can customize the hardware structure, match its own edge-side AI algorithms, integrate imaging, computing, and storage capabilities, and improve the perception performance of smart devices.
Currently, most general-purpose CIS on the market are adapted for consumer imaging scenarios, with algorithm optimization leaning towards human visual perception, which cannot meet the industrial-grade precision required for spatial perception and 3D modeling, and there are pain points such as high latency, insufficient dynamic range, and weak anti-interference capabilities. Self-developed customized CIS has become Meta's optimal solution to solve the hardware adaptation problem. Relying on the three-layer stacked architecture, the sensor can independently complete image acquisition, data caching, and signal preprocessing without relying on the computing power of back-end chips, significantly reducing the computing load and energy consumption of terminal devices, and perfectly adapting to the usage scenarios of VR/AR devices for long-term operation and real-time spatial perception.
In addition, this cross-boundary R&D is also a strategic layout for Meta to avoid fierce industry competition and build technological barriers. The current mobile phone CIS track is fiercely competitive, while the dedicated sensor track for AI smart hardware and spatial computing terminals is still in a blue ocean stage, with relatively few players and less competitive pressure.
04 Domestic CIS: A Golden Era
As mentioned above, along with the continuous technological iteration of domestic CIS enterprises and the continuous spillover of mature process foundry capacity in Taiwan, China, local CIS manufacturers are ushering in a rare window of development.
In the mobile phone CIS market, GalaxyCore and OmniVision were the first to challenge Sony. The high-performance CIS market has long been supplied by Sony and Samsung, especially the 50-megapixel (50MP) main camera CIS. Currently, Sony has more than 10 models of 50MP CIS, with pixel sizes ranging from 1.0 to 1.6μm. Samsung mainly targets high-resolution and small pixel products; currently, Samsung has more than 8 models of 100-megapixel CIS and more than 3 models of 50MP CIS.
GalaxyCore's high cost-performance solutions have won more orders for mid-to-low-end models of Android phones. In terms of 50MP CIS, GalaxyCore has undergone multiple generations of product iteration. In December last year, GalaxyCore also globally launched two new specification single-chip 50-megapixel image sensors, GC50F0 and GC50D1. GC50F0 is the world's first single-chip image sensor using 0.64μm small pixels, featuring high adaptability and flexible application in various mobile phone lenses. GC50D1 adopts a 0.8μm pixel specification, mainly targeting main camera, ultra-wide-angle, and telephoto applications that have higher requirements for light intake and image quality.
OmniVision's 50MP sensor products (such as OV50H, etc.) have rapidly penetrated domestic mainstream mobile phone manufacturers relying on their high cost-performance advantages, becoming the main camera solutions for flagship models of Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei, Honor, and Xiaomi.
SmartSens' 50MP mobile phone CIS products are also continuing to scale up. Recently, SmartSens also announced the launch of a 50-megapixel ultra-high dynamic range mobile phone application CMOS image sensor — SC575XS, which is a 1/1.56-inch image sensor with a 1.0μm pixel size.
In the security and surveillance CIS field, SmartSens' shipment volume ranks first globally. Targeting the core scenario needs of security and surveillance, SmartSens has built a full-stack proprietary technology system, including SFCPixel patented pixel technology, NIR+ near-infrared enhancement technology, global shutter technology, and a full series of HDR technology systems.
In the domestic automotive CIS market, OmniVision holds a strong position. Its main rival in automotive CIS is not Sony, but onsemi.
In the high-pixel CIS field, onsemi launched its first 8-megapixel CIS in 2017. OmniVision launched its second-generation 8-megapixel product in 2019 and mass-produced and shipped it after completing R&D in 2021. OmniVision launched its product later than onsemi. Given the 2–3 year lead time from design win to mass production for automotive-grade chips, onsemi currently holds a larger share of the 8MP automotive CIS market. Leveraging its first-mover advantage in the high-end 8-megapixel market and its innovation capabilities in product R&D, onsemi firmly sits in the top position in CIS.
OmniVision's installation rate in brand cars such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi ranks at the forefront of the industry. In the past two years, on the basis of its original cooperation with mainstream European and American car brands, OmniVision has been massively introduced into the solutions of domestic traditional car brands and new car-making forces. For example, both Li Auto ONE and Leapmotor C11 are equipped with OmniVision's automotive CIS.
Overall, in recent years, domestic CIS chip suppliers are rapidly converging from non-automotive fields such as mobile phones and security to the automotive industry. Market competition has begun to intensify and drive changes in the landscape. Local manufacturers represented by OmniVision, SmartSens, and GalaxyCore are increasing their investment in the automotive CIS field, and their market share is also gradually increasing.
In addition to the above-mentioned enterprises, within the domestic scope, there are also manufacturers including Yuanshixin, BYD Semiconductor, Changguang Chenxin, Guangzhou Yinxin, Ruixinwei, Weiguang Jidian, Xinshi, Haitu Microelectronics, Chuangshi Microelectronics, and Sibake that have also laid out in the automotive CIS field, but their current market share is not very high.