I meant the chip between the builtin laptop webcam and its internal USB2 connection, which is typically a tiny, dedicated IC. Smartphones cameras are not USB2,

I meant the chip between the builtin laptop webcam and its internal USB2 connection, which is typically a tiny, dedicated IC. Smartphones cameras are not USB2, they are, I think, directly connected to a powerful SoC. The USB2 link is for sending data to the computer after the smartphone has processed it with all the might of its main processor.