Update (15/12/2017): Chines smartphone maker, Vivo will lead the way for under display fingerprint sensor. The Forbes contributor Patrick Moorhead, who got to spend some time with a pre-production unit of the Vivo phone, reported about it.
Here are some pics @anshelsag and I took of the Vivo smartphone with the Synaptics in-display fingerprint reader. The CMOS image sensor is .7mm thick and reads the fingerprint right through the OLED display. The experience was faster than I expected. pic.twitter.com/u1NFpXtFQM
— Patrick Moorhead (@PatrickMoorhead) December 14, 2017
The in-display fingerprint sensors are set to become a reality by early next year. Synaptics, a firm responsible for manufacturing touch-pads for laptops and touchscreen smartphones, has announced the mass production of its Clear ID, which is a fingerprint sensor adjusted under the display.
Synaptics said that the in-display fingerprint recognition is going into full production with the top five OEMs, and they will offer a live demonstration of the technology at the CES in January 2018. This also means that the first wave of flagship smartphones (like the Galaxy S9 and the LG G7) will miss out on Clear ID feature.
The Clear ID is supposed to work the same way as the home button fingerprint sensor, a trademark of Samsung and Apple phones before the advent of full vision displays. Once the technology is out users will be able to authenticate their phone with a simple tap on the display.
What this essentially means is that manufacturers will again be able to use fingerprint sensor on the front in spite of those minimal bezel full-vision displays that are quite a rage these days.
If you recall, it was exactly a year ago Synaptics gave the first impression of its F9100 optical fingerprint sensor, which Samsung wanted to use it on their S8 flagship smartphone. But, they had to give up on this plan as the technology was just a breakthrough and requires a lot of thorough testing.
Now with all the wrinkles ironed out, the technology is back on track and ready to prove its mettle. As of now, it is unclear which will be the first smartphone to feature the new Clear ID, but we expect things to become clear as 2018 passes along.
