Earlier this week, Synaptics announced it has begun mass production with a top-five OEM to produce its new Clear ID FS9500 in-display fingerprint sensor.
While the announcement didn’t specify the name of the company, many assumed Samsung’s Galaxy S9 will be the first smartphone to offer an in-display fingerprint authentication system. After all, the Samsung Galaxy S8 was supposed to get Synaptics’ FS9100 optical fingerprint sensor, but that didn’t happen in the end.
Well as it turns out, these predictions were wrong. According to a new report coming from Forbes, Synaptics has revealed the name of the OEM in question. And it’s not Samsung, but Vivo – a relatively unknown brand in the Western market.
The company, which is part of the Chinese BBK Electronics conglomerate, alongside OPPO and OnePlus is very well-known in its home country due to its products that always seem to be first in line for new trends. Now Vivo is going to be the first OEM to bring the world an 18:9 bezel-less phone with a fingerprint scanner under the display. But will Synaptics’ new sensor get the much-needed exposure inside a Vivo phone? The Samsung Galaxy S9 would have been a much safer bet, although chances are the Korean OEM might have just given up on the idea and cut its losses.
If you are a bit curious about the new in-screen sensor created by Synaptics, this is a small CMOS device planted below an AMOLED display. In order for the technology to work, the finger has to be illuminated, so the scanner can read the reflection on the finger scan.
This means that using the technology will require part of the screen to light up so that the fingerprint scanner can capture the reflection between the AMOLED pixels.
The overall process takes about 0.7 seconds, which is a bit longer than the usual 0.2 seconds advertised by most fingerprint scanners these days. On the bright side, Synaptics notes the tech consumes very little, as low as 80 mA of power.
While it’s quite disappointing we won’t be seeing Synaptics’ new in-display fingerprint scanner on the Galaxy S9, we’re certainly curious to see how Vivo’s phone will turn out. How about you?
