Samsung’s ALoP introduces a large aperture lens that promises low-noise portrait images in night shots and a lower-profile camera bump and slimmer smartphone. The upcoming Galaxy S25 Ultra may be the first to use the technology.

In November 2024, Samsung Electronics won a total of 29 ‘CES Innovation Awards 2025’ ahead of the world’s largest and most influential technology event, CES 2025. One Samsung technology honored with a CES 2025 Innovation Award is All Lenses on Prism (ALoP). This revolutionary structure that enables smaller telephoto camera modules while capturing bright and clear photos, will be showcased at the Las Vegas Convention Center from January 7-10, 2025.

As mobile phone users demand better image capture from their cameras, smartphone makers have added cameras for each zoom ratio (e.g. wide, ultra-wide, telephoto). Over time, the phone camera array has become quite crowded, with an ever-larger camera bump. That may be about to change thanks to All Lenses on Prism (ALoP), developed by Samsung’s Sensor Solutions Team.

The technology, which was officially announced in November 2024, may debut in the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra smartphone, the upcoming company’s flagship model, which, according to rumors, will have the same lens set as the S24 Ultra, except for the ultrawide camera, which will drop the actual 12MP and be based on a 50MP sensor with a 1/1.57″ optical size and 1.0 µm individual pixels the Samsung ISOCELL S5KJN3. There is also a chance that AloP will first appear on a rumored Galaxy S25 Slim, a new addition to the family, that will be used to show the potential of AloP to incorporate a set of large telephoto lenses in a smartphone without incurring the penalty of a huge camera bump.

Limitations of the folded telephoto camera

Telephoto cameras have been a new point of differentiation for smartphone manufacturers because they offer high-magnification capabilities, can compress backgrounds, reduce distortion due to the narrow field of view, and even create a suitable background blur effect, ideal for portraits… but as they reach ratios up to 5x, taller module height and an obtrusive camera bump are unavoidable.

The common solution is the use of folded telephoto camera structure, bending the path of light by 90 degrees like a periscope to allow for longer focal lengths horizontally without extending the thickness of smartphone vertically. The lenses stand vertically with respect to the plane of the smartphone body, so their diameter determines the height of the camera bump. This made higher magnification telephoto cameras in smartphones possible… but introduced limitations in terms of light gathering.

In fact, the folded telephoto camera structure limits the telephoto improvements that can be made in terms of image brightness.  A wider lens diameter is required for brighter images. Moving to a larger telephoto lens and brighter telephoto camera using large image sensor increases both the module height and length, to the point where the user would find the resulting bulky camera bump objectionable.

To address these issues, the industry has been looking for a solution that can achieve better results than traditional folded zoom structures. That’s AloP, a technology that employs a clever optical structure in which lenses sit horizontally upon the prism, remaining in the plane of the smartphone body. Using this approach, increasing the effective lens size (EPD) by increasing lens diameter brings a brighter image yet does not affect the camera module shoulder height. Moreover, it provides for a shorter module length by reducing the space needed for lenses in the folded camera module.

ALoP: features and benefits

Here are the key features and benefits AloP brings to smartphones:

Brightness. The novel optics design of ALoP accommodates an f/2.58 lens aperture at a focal length of 80mm. Differing from conventional folded camera optics, the lens in this case is placed ahead of the prism. In this way, ALoP can use a large aperture lens that promises low-noise portrait images in night shots.

Compact size. Thanks to the ALoP architecture, the module length can be shortened 22% with respect to conventional folded camera optics. More importantly, the ALoP takes up an especially low module height because it employs a 40˚-tilted prism reflection surface and 10˚-tilted sensor assembly. Taken together, these reduced dimensions make for a lower-profile camera bump and slimmer smartphone.

Aesthetics and ergonomics. Users generally find a thick smartphone camera bump objectionable. It not only makes the smartphone design unappealing but also harder to use when laid on a flat surface. Additionally, the shape of the lenses within the camera bump can be off-putting. In a smartphone using conventional folded camera optics, users see a rectangular prism that is cosmetically somewhat jarring to an otherwise sleek camera appearance. By contrast, in a smartphone adopting ALoP optics, users see only the expected circular lens shapes.

According to Younggyu Jeong, from Samsung’s Sensor Solutions Team, “smartphone cameras are rapidly evolving, but they haven’t yet surpassed DSLR capabilities due to size constraints. I believe new technologies will continue to emerge to close that gap, with technologies aimed at improving the image quality of telephoto cameras, which are disadvantaged in terms of form factor, at the forefront.”

“As a business” – he added -, “we anticipate the commercialization of various technologies to reduce F/#, increase zoom magnification, and reduce module size. We will continue to combine the differentiated hardware solutions of ISOCELL with AI-based software solutions to expand users’ mobile camera experiences.”