Qualcomm introduced fingerprint sensors that work through the display and metal

At the Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2017 in Shanghai, Qualcomm introduced new ultrasonic fingerprint sensors for mobile devices that can work through glass, display and metal.

The company also announced new gesture recognition sensors and fingerprint sensors that work under water. Finally, the technology stack included includes the first commercial ultrasound sensors for mobile devices that can capture heart rate and blood flow for user authentication purposes.

According to Ferra , the new Fingerprint Sensor scanner, designed to work through the display, is capable of recognizing fingerprints through OLED displays up to 1.2 mm thick. In turn, the other two new generation sensors operate through glass surfaces up to 0.8 mm thick and aluminum surfaces up to 0.65 mm thick, respectively. At the same time, the previous generation of sensors could work through glass or metal up to 0.4 mm thick.

The company reported that new fingerprint sensors that work through glass and metal will become available to manufacturers in June, and the first devices with them will appear in the first half of 2018. At the same time, a sensor for scanning fingerprints through the display will become available in the fourth quarter of the year.

Note that the exhibition featured a smartphone equipped with a sensor operating through a display created in collaboration with Vivo. His work was appreciated by Engadget journalist Richard Lai, who noted that the sensor takes quite a long time to respond (about one second), and in this indicator it is comparable to the iPhone 6 scanner.

Let us recall that, according to rumors, Apple and Samsung are working on the integration of fingerprint sensors into smartphone displays, but, according to some leaks, the technology has not yet reached a level that allows mass production of devices with such sensors.