Apple has filed for another patent (number 20210081639) that involves Touch ID being built under the screen of future iPhones (and — who knows? — iPads, as well).
Touch ID is an electronic fingerprint recognition feature, designed and released by Apple that allows users to unlock Apple devices, make purchases in the various Apple digital media stores (the iTunes Store, the App Store, and the Apple BookStore), and authenticate Apple Pay online or in apps.
Here’s the summary of the patent filing, which is dubbed “under-display fingerprint sensing based on off-axis angular light: “An apparatus for touch-sensing includes a light-emitting layer covered by a transparent layer and configured to illuminate a surface touching the transparent layer and to allow transmission of reflected light rays from the surface to underlying layers.
“The underlying layers include an optical coupling layer, a collimator layer and a pixelated image sensor. The optical coupling layer bends the reflected light rays to create oblique light rays. The collimator layer includes a number of apertures to collimate the received light rays. The pixelated image sensor senses the collimated oblique light rays.”
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has said that Apple wants to enable a fingerprint scanner under the display of at least one high-end iPhone in 2023. However, Barclays analysts have predicted that under-screen Touch ID may arrive in this year’s iPhone 13 line-up (well, at least one high-end model).
