Qualcomm and BOE to Develop Biometric Finger-scanning Displays

Qualcomm has entered into a strategic partnership with China’s BOE Technology. The two companies will work together to develop display products that feature Qualcomm’s 3D Sonic fingerprint sensors, with an eye towards 5G and IoT devices.

To that end, Qualcomm and BOE will specifically try to integrate the 3D Sonic sensor into BOE’s flexible OLED panels. BOE will then offer those panels to its existing customers to enable in-display fingerprint authentication in smartphones and other devices.

Consumer devices featuring the joint solution are expected to hit the market in the second half of the year. The collaboration will simplify the supply chain and reduce material and research and development costs for both companies.

“Through this collaboration, we expect that [original equipment manufacturers] will have more opportunities to design cutting-edge products that feature OLED displays with fingerprint sensor technology. We look forward to further strengthening our innovative collaborations with BOE in key areas like 5G, XR and IoT,” said Qualcomm SVP and QCT Chief Operations Officer Roawen Chen.

The partnership suggests that in-display fingerprint recognition will continue to be a popular authentication option for current generation smartphones. Samsung opted to stick with the technology in its new Galaxy S20, while Goodix has placed its in-display sensor in numerous 5G smartphones in the past few months.

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April 15, 2020 – by Eric Weiss