The Holst Centre announced that it will show several new fingerprint sensor innovations at Display Week 2019 next week. The research center will show a new high-resolution (500 PPI) under-the-display sensor that uses the Center's proprietary collimator technology as well as an in-display sensor concept that uses photolithography patterning to integrate the OLED and organic photo diodes (OPD) pixels side-by-side.

The Holst will also showcase a new over-the-display (suitable for LCDs) transparent sensor which at 70% the center says is the world's most transparent fingerprint sensor.

In January 2019 Austria-based Sensor developer AMS announced a new RGB light and proximity sensor IC, the TCS3701, that can be placed behind an OLED screen, and still accurately measure the intensity of ambient light.

In AMS' recent conference call, the company's CEO says that the new sensor has already become a "resounding market success". Several major smartphone platforms recently launched in Asia already adopt the new sensor and shipment volumes are expanding. AMS says that customer traction for behind OLED continues to be strong and the company expects adoption to broaden from this into next year.

In October 2018, during the company's OLED Forum in china, Samsung detailed its future OLED technology roadmap, highlighting its sensor integration technologies. Samsung's vision includes putting a fingerprint sensor, a camera, speaker (Sound on Display) and also Haptic capabilities - all under or inside the OLED display.

In the Galaxy S10, Samsung drilled a small hole in the AMOLED display around the camera module. This is quite an achievement, and Samsung's Mobile Communication VP Yang Byung-duk now ways that the company aims to develop a full-screen smartphone display that will put the camera under the OLED without a hole. Byung-duk says that this is a challenging technology - and it will take at least 3 years to develop.

Samsung announced a handful of new devices, all with OLED displays. We'll start with the company's 2019 flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S10. It includes four different variants -

• Galaxy S10 5G: 6.7" 3040x1440 flexible AMOLED
• Galaxy S10+: 6.4" 3040x1440 flexible AMOLED
• Galaxy S10: 6.1" 3040x1440 flexible AMOLED
• Galaxy S10e: 5.8" 2280x1080 AMOLED (rigid?)

The S10 phones use Samsung's latest AMOLEDs, that are now HDR10+ certified, include an under-the-OLED fingerprint sensor (Qualcomm ultra-sonic) and cut-outs for the selfie cameras. Samsung calls these displays "Dynamic AMOLED" (due to the HDR support, probably) and "Infinity-O Display" due to the camera cut-outs.

Austria-based Sensor developer AMS announced a new RGB light and proximity sensor IC that can be placed behind an OLED screen, and still accurately measure the intensity of ambient light. This will enable OLED smartphone makers to further reduce the front bezel and place yet another component behind the OLED display.

The TCS3701 senses the light that passes through the display, and using unique algorithms the sensor can detect ambient light levels accurately without any information regarding the display pixel brightness above the sensor. The whole system package is 2 x 2.5 x 0.5 mm in size and so fits behind the smartphone OLED display.

On October 19 Samsung held its 2018 Samsung OLED Forum, in Shenzhen, China, during which the company highlighted its OLED technology roadmap.

In an interesting slide, Samsung shows its roadmap for integrating sensors into the OLED display. Samsung's vision includes putting a fingerprint sensor, a camera (Under Panel Sensor, or UPS), speaker (Sound on Display) and also Haptic capabilities.

Huawei launched several new devices yesterday, including four new AMOLED ones. The top of the line is the Mate 20 X, a large smartphone that features several high-end technologies - a 7.2" 1080x2244 (346 PPI) AMOLED display, a triple Leica cameras setup, a GoodixTech under-the-display fingerprint sensor, a 5000 mAh battery and a graphene thermal management film.

Huawei also launched the smaller Mate 20 Pro - another high-end smartphone that features a 6.39" 1440x3120 (538 PPI) AMOLED display (reportedly produced by BOE), an Octa-Core Kirin 980 (7 nm) chipet, 6GB of RAM, 128 GB of storage, an NM card slot and a triple Leica optics camera setup. The Mate 20 Pro is the first smartphone to adopt Synaptics' complete display system solution - which includes Synaptics’ flexible chip-on-film (COF) ClearView display driver and the company's ClearPad touch controllers.

This is a guest post by Dr. Guillaume Chansin, founder and principal consultant at Irimitech Consulting

New sensor technologies are being developed specifically for the integration of fingerprint scanning functionalities with OLED displays. The recent announcements indicate that the industry is moving away from capacitive sensors to focus their efforts on optical or ultrasonic detection. For display manufacturers, this could even present opportunities to innovate and offer their own solutions.

Once a premium feature, fingerprint sensors have become almost standard on smartphones. However, the latest design trend is to remove the bezels around the display, leaving no room for the fingerprint sensor. Some OEMs made the choice to move the sensor to the back of the device, which is not always convenient (for instance when mounted on a car dash).

IHS says that smartphone makers are expected to increase their adoption of under-the-display fingerprint sensors. In 2018, 9 million such smartphones will be sold, but the market will grow extremely quickly and will reach over 100 million unit in 2019. By 2022, over 300 million such phones will ship.

Under-the-display sensors are currently only applicable to OLED displays. Chinese phones makers (such as Vivo and Huawei) already started shipping the first phones to adopt this technology. IHS estimates that looking forward, the market will be led by Samsung and Chinese smartphone makers such as Vivo, Huawei and Xiaomi.

In December 2017 Synaptics unveiled a new under-the-OLED fingerprint sensor called Clear ID. Following a year-long collaboration with Synaptics, Chinese phone maker Vivo has unveiled the first device to use such a solution.

Vivo's smartphone (which does not have a model yet) has a 6" AMOLED display, and it will be released in Asia in Q2 2018. According to the report at Android Authority, the solution is very nice and works quite well, although it is slower than currently available sensors, as it takes 0.7 seconds to unlock the phone (Synaptics says that this is actually on par with regular sensors).