New ultrasonic fingerprint sensor technology could be arriving to tablet PC’s as early as 2018 thanks to highly sophisticated breakthroughs made by chip maker Qualcomm.
Qualcomm announced today at MWC in Shanghai that they have been working on next-generation ultrasonic fingerprint scanning technology. These new fingerprint sensors are based on ultrasonic as opposed to capacitive technology which opens up a whole new world of possibilities for smartphone and tablet PC manufacturers.
Being that these three new forms of fingerprint sensors work beneath metal, glass and OLED displays, more OEM’s will have the ability to practically get rid of bezels all together. Additionally, we may see more waterproof tablets being that this new fingerprint match technology by Qualcomm even works underwater. Screen to body ratios could greatly improve for future table PC’s and smartphones.
In a partnership with Vivo, Qualcomm displayed three prototypes of this new technology at MWC. Check out the video below showcasing the technology on the Vivo XPlay 6 smartphone.
Qualcomm also mentioned how their new ultrasonic fingerprint sensors can detect directional gestures as well as blood flow and heart beats for even more advanced biometric mobile authentication security. Making such headway means these new scanners can in fact verify that a fingerprint comes from a living finger. The new technology can also “wake-up” devices.
Even tablet PC OEM’s that don’t equip their devices with Snapdragon processors will desire this technology because it will also work with other CPU’s according to a press release issued by Qualcomm earlier today.
Qualcomm Fingerprint Sensors for Display, Glass and Metal are designed to be compatible with future Snapdragon Mobile Platforms and non-Snapdragon platforms.
Reports claim that Qualcomm will be offering test versions of their new fingerprint sensors to OEM’s as early as this October. It’s expected that we’ll see devices using the new fingerprint sensors for glass and metal come early 2018, while devices using the technology in OLED displays may not arrive until the summer of 2018.