Samsung Files Patent On Full-Display Fingerprint Sensor For Notchless, Bezel-Free Next Galaxy
There are a couple of challenges facing smartphone designers at the moment. One is the notch at the top of the display, a concept introduced by Andy Rubin and his Essential Phone, and later popularized by Apple and its iPhone X. The other being able to embed a fingerprint sensor into the display itself. It looks like Samsung is working to tackle both challenges.
Samsung is not a fan of the notch, a concept it's repeatedly mocked at the expense of Apple. That's why the company's Galaxy S9 and Galaxy Note 9—it's two most recent flagship handsets—emerged with a full-length border across the top. However, Samsung is definitely interested in offering a truly bezel-free phone.
Great news! Samsung established the direction of mobile phone design in 2019!
— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) October 19, 2018
On October 18th, Samsung Display invited about 20 customers to hold the "2018 Samsung OLED Forum" at the Shenzhen Marriott Hotel in China. At the meeting, Samsung showed a PPT pic.twitter.com/sYu0ORTd6V
Prominent leaker Ice Universe (@UniverseIce on Twitter) posted a photo of Samsung giving a presentation on several innovations, including fingerprint technology under the screen (FoD), under the screen sensor technology that includes cameras (UPS), touch-sensitive technology (HoD), and screen sound technology (SoD).
As it relates to the fingerprint sensor, Samsung also filed a patent that describes a technology for embedding it into the display. This would replace having to put a sensor on the back of the phone, and would act as an alternative for facial recognition. It describes an FoD scanner, in other words, and what's interesting is that it would work with the entirety of the display.
This means a user could press their thumb or finger anywhere on the front display to register a fingerprint, and not just a special area. Samsung aims to accomplish this by embedding a fingerprint sensor into the actual display layer, powered by a second lower power processor. The way it would work is the display would go temporarily into High Brightness Mode, with three different scans taking place.
It's an interesting concept, though the concern here would be the time it takes to register a full fingerprint scan. According to the patent, it would take about 60 to 90 milliseconds for all three scans, with the processor needing 200 to 300 milliseconds in between each one to adjust the brightness. In total, it would take up to around 700 milliseconds (30 + 300 + 30 + 300 + 30).
Since Samsung is talking about this stuff, hopefully it means we will see these technologies introduced in the next Galaxy phone.
