Samsung Patents a Display That Captures HDR Photos Without a Camera Cutout
Samsung is working on a screen that can take high-dynamic-range photos without any visible camera hole, by hiding light-sensing pixels directly inside the display panel.
How Samsung hides a camera inside the screen itself
Today's under-display cameras are a compromise: the screen has to thin out or remove pixels in a small zone so light can reach the sensor below, which shows up as a slightly blurry or washed-out patch. Samsung's new patent describes a different approach where the sensor and the screen are the same thing.
The display contains two types of pixels sitting side by side: ones that emit light (your normal picture) and ones that receive light (the camera). The clever part is that the receiving pixels are split into two groups. One group runs at a lower electrical charge and is good at capturing bright scenes without blowing them out. The other group runs at a higher charge and picks up detail in shadows. Together, they produce a single HDR image (a photo that holds both the bright highlights and the dark corners at the same time).
The result, at least in theory, is a phone with a completely clear, uninterrupted screen and a built-in camera that can handle tricky lighting.
… generate an HDR image based on the first light-reception signals and the second light-reception signals.
Translation: It combines those signals to produce a high dynamic range photo.
How two pixel groups at different voltages build one HDR image
The patent describes a display panel with three layers working together. The top layer is a lens layer, a grid of tiny focusing lenses aligned one-to-one with every light-receiving pixel below. The lenses concentrate incoming light onto the sensors, compensating for the fact that those sensors are flush with the display surface rather than sitting behind a dedicated optical stack.
Below the lenses is the pixel layer, which holds both light-emitting pixels (your display image) and two distinct groups of light-receiving pixels:
- First-group pixels receive a lower driving voltage, making them less sensitive. They capture well-lit areas without overexposing.
- Second-group pixels receive a higher driving voltage, boosting their sensitivity to pull detail from darker parts of the scene.
The processor collects both sets of signals simultaneously, then stitches them into a single HDR (high dynamic range) image. HDR essentially means the photo can show bright sky and shadowy foreground at the same time, something a single exposure setting normally can't do.
Applying different voltages to different sensor pixels in a single capture is the key move here. Conventional multi-exposure HDR takes several sequential shots and blends them, which causes blur if anything is moving. This design captures both exposures in one pass, which could reduce that motion problem.
What a true under-display camera means for Galaxy screens
For you as a consumer, the most obvious payoff is aesthetic: no punch-hole, no notch, no pill-shaped cutout breaking up your screen. A fully uninterrupted display has been the goal of every major phone maker for years, and the camera has been the last obstacle. Samsung's Samsung's steady string of under-display camera filings points to real engineering investment in closing that gap.
The HDR angle matters too. Under-display cameras have historically produced softer, lower-quality images because less light reaches the sensor. By building dual-exposure capture directly into the pixel architecture, Samsung is trying to offset that quality penalty with smarter signal processing rather than a bigger aperture.
That makes this Samsung's 114th filing we've tracked since May in our camera sensor push, adding to work like decoding color from one signal and auto-finding video highlights.
Claim 1 covers any electronic device with a display that splits its built-in light-sensing pixels into two groups and runs each group at a different voltage at the exact same moment. No specific screen material, pixel layout, or lens shape is required, which means the claim reaches across a wide range of screen and camera designs.
That simultaneous requirement is the claim's real teeth. A rival who simply took two photos back-to-back at different brightness settings would not escape it, because the claim specifically demands both voltages operating at once.
For anyone buying a phone, the practical meaning is straightforward: Samsung is securing legal territory around a technique that could make a camera hidden behind a screen perform far better than such cameras do today, and any product that works the same way would have to reckon with this claim.
There are more where this came from
We read every patent application Big Tech publishes and send you the ones worth knowing. Plain English, free, every week.
The drawings
23 drawing sheets from US 2026/0268862 A1 · click any drawing to enlarge
Want this weekly breakdown for a company we don't cover? Patentlyze Pro →