Renesas Technology has announced the availability of a camera module that could lead to smartphones with 16 megapixel cameras. Sample shipments are already starting to handset manufacturers of the model, which comes with a 1920 × 1080 image resolution.

The company said in a brief release that it aims to start commercial production from March 2011.

In addition to a maximum of 16 megapixels for static images, the company said that the new module offers high-speed continuous shooting at 15 frames per second at 13 megapixels.