14 DAY TRIAL // A biometric sensor patent filed by Samsung with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on April 10 has been published on October 11, and it reveals information about an in-house fingerprint scanner embedded in a smartphone's display, as discovered by LetsGoDigital.
"The present disclosure relates generally to a biometric sensor for detecting user's biometric information and a device including the same," says the patent's technical field.
As detailed in the "Biometric sensor and device including the same" patent, Samsung might be working on making their own in-screen fingerprint scanner, quite a surprising move considering that most sources with inside knowledge have said that the future Galaxy S10 will adopt Qualcomm's third generation ultrasonic fingerprint sensor.
The 3rd gen Snapdragon Sense ID scanner developed by Qualcomm is supposed to be the most accurate under-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor available on the market, better than Goodix's optical sensor used by Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi in wet conditions.
Samsung might be developing their own in-screen fingerprint optical scanner, possibly for Galaxy S10, according to a published WIPO patent
However, optical fingerprint sensors like the one Samsung is planning on manufacturing on their own are a lot faster and more accurate than ultrasonic ones, which might be the exact reason why this tech was chosen by the Korean electronics company.
"The biometric sensor module may include, for example, an optical biometric sensor," says Samsung's WIPO patent. "For example, the biometric sensor module may capture the user's fingerprint image using an embedded image sensor (e.g., a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor or a charge coupled device (CCD) image sensor)."
If the Samsung Galaxy S10 comes with an in-display fingerprint scanner, it will be their first smartphone bundling this type of tech, but it definitely won't be the first phone on the market featuring it, with Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi all having already released at least one such phone.
According to multiple rumors, Samsung's Galaxy S10 will be unveiled somewhere around February 2019, when we will know for sure if it really has an in-display fingerprint scanner and if it's an in-house made one.
