Most phones now come with a built-in fingerprint recognition that allows for extra security, which usually works through under-display fingerprint scanners and doesn’t allow for much variety as these scanners are mostly mounted either on the front or back of the phone.
Xiaomi is looking to change the game after successfully submitting a patent for a new fingerprint scanning technology that now allows users to touch anywhere on the screen for fingerprint recognition.
The technology works by utilizing infrared light transmitters and receivers, sandwiching an array of infrared LED light transmitters between the AMOLED display and capacitive touch-screen layer, with another layer of infrared receivers sitting above the transmitters.
Xiaomi’s All-Screen Fingerprint Scanner Patent. Image credit: Gizmochina
When the screen is touched, the touch, position, and shape of the fingertip are registered by the capacitive touch screen, triggering the array of infrared LED light transmitters to emit light only at the shape and position of the fingertip, while the other transmitters will not light up.
Upon contact with the fingertip, this infrared light is then reflected back to the infrared light receivers. The data received is used to map out the fingerprint, before being compared to the database of saved fingerprints in the phone. If a match is found, the phone will be unlocked immediately. As of now, there is no word on how accurate or how fast this patented fingerprint scanner technology works.
In August 2020, Huawei had also submitted a patent for their own all-screen fingerprint sensor to six markets – namely China, Europe, the US, Japan, Korea, and India – but nothing has come out of it.
Only time will tell how soon Xiaomi will be able to introduce this fingerprint recognition technology to the market, but you can bet we’ll be one of the first to test it out.
