World’s first in-display fingerprint scanner for LCD display panels successfully developed

Blaze Display Technology Co., Ltd. | Updated: Nov 27, 2018

Nowadays, the mainstream screen fingerprinting technology utilizes an optical sensor that only works with OLED panels. The principle is to combine the visible light camera with the display panel through a specific process, and use the light transmittance of the OLED panel to “photograph” the fingerprint.

Due to the existence of backlight on LCD panels, these are naturally incapable of transmitting light. Therefore, mobile phones that currently use screen fingerprint recognition use OLED panels. But, that could change soon.

After continuous efforts from the manufacturers, a major breakthrough has been achieved in the LCD-based in-display fingerprint sensor solution. Fortsense has announced that it has successfully developed in-display fingerprint sensor for the LCD panels.

The R&D team of R&S claims that they revised and improved the fingerprint optical path scheme through continuous modification and improvement of the LCD backlight panel. This solved the display effect, fingerprint imaging effect and other related issues.

Further, the company seems to have adopted an algorithm-based approach. It uses the deep learning neural network algorithm for optimization and recognition of fingerprints quickly on the LCD panel. As per the company, the fingerprint recognition rate is comparable to the traditional fingerprint sensors.

This is a major breakthrough as the costing of LCD panel is much cheaper than the OLED panels. Also, the usage of LCD panels is also much more than OLED displays. If this works out well, then we should be getting a budget smartphone with in-display fingerprint sensors by the end of next year.