Qualcomm is a name that resonates well with chipsets that mostly power smartphones and wearables. However, Qualcomm has also been developing Fingerprint sensors for quite some time. The feature was previously called Sense ID and has been renamed to Qualcomm Fingerprint Sensor. As expected the new Fingerprint sensors from Qualcomm boast of improvements over the current crop of sensors.

The Qualcomm Fingerprint Sensors will extend support for an under glass sensors that can be placed beneath a phone’s display and will allow users to register their fingerprints by touching on the screen. That’s not all, Qualcomm Fingerprint Sensor will also support options that work with glass and metal thus allowing the manufacturers to put up an extra layer of material over the phones.

Since the Qualcomm Fingerprint sensor works on Ultrasonic, the sound waves generated can still penetrate through the glass and metal up to a certain thickness. Qualcomm claims that the new Fingerprint sensor can scan through an OLED layer of up to 1200 nm display stacks while the thickness is 800nm for Glass and 525 nm of aluminium. The Fingerprint sensor can also be used underwater since it supports IP68.

Qualcomm has unveiled the Fingerprint sensor and the same is expected on smartphones starting from the first half of 2018. The new Fingerprint sensor will help manufacturers save on space as opposed to the usual fingerprint sensor and it will also help them improve the aesthetics of the phone without the need to bother about the fingerprint sensor placement.

On a related note, Vivo has been rumoured to be working on a smartphone with a Fingerprint sensor into the display. The same can also be seen in the video of an unannounced Vivo smartphone that surfaced recently.