12-megapixel Cameras in Mobile Phones. Almost There...

Some new world records are about to be broken in terms of mobile phones and their performances. Broadcom Corporation has just unveiled a processor that should be capable of supporting a large number of great features, including that of delivering a HD camcorder that also provides an up to 12-megapixel digital camera.

Broadcom was supposed to deliver 7.2 Mbps HSDPA processors and the BCM2724 multimedia processor, providing low power MPEG-4 playback and NTSC/PAL direct video output. The product is especially targeted towards Symbian S60 smartphones that look to break the limits set by previous handsets.

Still, the most interesting one proved to be the BCM2727 processor, capable of handling a large number of high-end multimedia features that no other mobile phone out there is capable of handling. It also includes 2D and 3D graphics accelerators for advanced user interfaces, navigation displays and mobile gaming.

It is clear that we are talking about a fairly powerful product, as it can sustain up to 60 hours of audio playback and 3 hours of HD camcorder capture time. Moreover, it provides performances close to those of Sony's Playstation Portable that can go up to 33 million triangles per second.

The producer is working on ways to make this processor be as little demanding as possible for the battery life. There is also a HDMI port included, which should take care of connecting smartphones to full-size HD televisions and enable the user to watch at best standards the captures taken with the 12 megapixel camera.

Most leading handset manufacturers, including Motorola, LG and Samsung have seen great potential in this type of processor, which should enable them to break current records. This brings high chances for smartphones running on the BCM2727 processor to hit the market towards the middle of 2009.