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Apple’s patent aims to address flaws in current under-display fingerprint sensors.
USPTO
The next iPhone could have something that other flagship phones already have: a fingerprint sensor buried in the screen. But if that seems like Apple is catching up, a recently revealed patent suggests that the company will tackle this problem in an original and different way that hasn’t been seen before.
The new patent, discovered by Patently Apple, is the latest from the tech giant on its way to putting Touch ID on the screen, a journey that has seen multiple patents in the past seven years.
The latter is related to something called off-axis light. The way a system like this works is that, as the patent explains, “in an under-display fingerprint submission system, the screen consists of active red-green-blue (RGB) pixels that emit light and illuminate your finger placed on the top of the screen. The light reflected by the finger passes through the openings between the pixels of the screen and is captured by the sensor below the screen. The contact and non-contact regions between the skin of the finger and the glass plate of the display generate a different intensity of light, which forms the contrast of the ridge-valley of the fingerprint. ”
I won’t subject it to much more patent language, but it goes on to say that problems arise “due to performance and low-light diffraction”, so “the fingerprint image may suffer from low contrast and low signal to noise ratio . ”
That’s where this new patent comes in, which “provides a method of capturing angular light off the axis of the finger by inserting angle-dependent filtering options between the screen and the sensor. This method can improve the contrast of fingerprints and keep the entire detection system compact. “
In other words, Apple may be late to the party with these kinds of features, but its aim is to do better through its particular design that will increase light to improve quality.
What’s interesting here is that Apple is focusing on optical sensors rather than the ultrasonic type used by Samsung in its S-series flagship phones, for example.
More images from Apple’s new patent: Polarizing Layers and Angular Light Distribution … [+]
USPTO
These are expensive and it appears that Apple is investigating whether optical sensors, enhanced with new approaches like this one, will deliver the same quality of fingerprint recognition without the high cost of ultrasound.
There are also other new items. Like the grids that make up the optical layer. Over the course of the patent, there are several mentions of different types, such as flamed grids or, and how good does this sound, holographic grids.
Different types of gratings aim at the same result, that is, to ensure that off-axis angular light can be maximized to improve the result.
One thing that’s especially likely, by the way: Face ID will also be on board – Apple has repeatedly said that Face ID is more secure than Touch ID, so you can be sure it won’t lower the security level in a future iPhone.
So when should we expect this new feature? Well, with a patent, you never know. The patent was filed last August and was made public a few days ago. Which means that it may be able to be integrated into the next iPhone when it arrives this fall.
I guess fall 2022 is a more likely arrival date – in my experience, if there’s a choice between Apple doing something tomorrow or the next day, it’s usually later. As is often said in the context of Apple’s aspirations, “Don’t do it first, get it right.”
Needless to add, there is also the possibility that it will not appear even next year, or even never.
But it sounds great, so let’s hope it happens sooner rather than later.
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