This is a 640x480 pixel resolution CMOS camera used in the Samsung E700 cellular phone. While 0.3 mega pixels may not sound like a lot, this module is one of the smallest, lowest cost CMOS imaging modules currently available to the embedded market. 640 x 480 pixels is more than enough data to test out your basic object recognition, obstacle avoidance algorithm, or simply to snap photos with your 8-bit micro.

This module is brand new, not surplus, we have a large inital stock quantity, and we will to stock this module for many years to come.

Now for the kicker - we have no documentation on this camera. The interface is hinted at with many other CMOS cameras, and since this is a cellular tech spin-off, there should be plenty of similar interfaces to mimic.

Therefore - we will be offering a $200 in-store gift certificate to the first customer who can adequately document and report their successful single-image capture using this module. We would be thrilled to post your mug and forever immortalize you on the SFE site (well, for a day or two anyway). We will be working to reverse engineer the unit and encourage all customers to work together through the SFE support forum.

Winner! On July 25, 2006 David Carne published the first photograph taken by the CMOS camera making him the winner of the reverse engineering the camera contest. Congrats David for pulling off what normally requires a team of engineers and a plethora of technical equipment! Thank you for opening the door to this geat camera. It took only 5 months and 5 days to take a completely ambiguous sensor to kick out some very complex image data. Nice job David! Take a look at the very active forum topic where David shows us how he did it.