Qualcomm today made a few mobile-related announcements at Mobile World Congress Shanghai, including a new fingerprint reader.
Qualcomm’s new Fingerprint Sensors can scan through displays, glass, and metal. Specifically, they can scan through OLED display stacks up to 1200um, up to 800um of cover glass and up to 650um of aluminum.
These new Fingerprint Sensors from Qualcomm will be available in a version that’s integrated with Snapdragon chipsets as well as standalone sensors that can be used with non-Snapdragon platforms.
Qualcomm says that its Fingerprint Sensors for Glass and Metal will be available to device makers this month and should begin appearing in commercial devices in the first half of 2018. The Fingerprint Sensor for Display should be available for OEMs in Q4 2017.
The purpose of Qualcomm’s new Fingerprint Sensors is to enable new design options for device makers. As companies work to reduce bezels and create new smartphone designs, they still need to figure out a way to include a fingerprint reader, which can take up quite a bit of space but is becoming a must-have feature for new devices. With Qualcomm’s new Fingerprint Sensors, OEMs can integrate fingerprint readers that’ll work through displays, glass, and metal, helping them to make new and interesting smartphone designs.