Samsung reportedly acquires Israeli company to improve its dual-camera tech

Samsung has recently unveiled phones with three and even four rear cameras, and it now looks like the company is making moves to improve its multi-camera technology. The South Korean giant is said to have paid nearly $155 million to acquire Israeli camera tech company Corephotonics, according to Globes.

Samsung Ventures was already a key investor in Corephotonics — alongside MediaTek and Foxconn — and it now looks like Samsung’s electronics arm is picking up sole rights to the brand. Corephotonics is notable for developing a zoom lens for OPPO that enabled 5x lossless zoom, and in recent years the company has worked on dual-camera solutions — with its tech present in over 300 million phones.

Corephotonics also filed multiple lawsuits against Apple alleging the iPhone maker infringed on its intellectual property in relation to dual-lens camera zoom technologies and their associated algorithms. Apple was said to be in discussions with Corephotonics as early as 2012 over a formal partnership, but the company didn’t make much headway.

As for Samsung, it’s clear the South Korean manufacturer saw value in acquiring Corephotonics outright. With the Israeli company working on bokeh solutions as well as improving image quality in low-light conditions and optical image stabilization, the deal would’ve been of immediate interest to Samsung.

The improvements may not show up on the Galaxy S10 — which is due for an unveil next month — but it’ll be interesting to see what Samsung gets out of the partnership later in the year.