Redmi gets a fingerprint scanner to work under an LCD screen

Under-display fingerprint scanners have been around for the past two years, with vivo being the first company to officially launch a smartphone with the tech - the vivo X20 Plus UD arrived in January 2018. Since then, the feature was widely adopted by all manufacturers, but it had a massive caveat - you can’t use it with an LCD screen due to the structure of the panel.

Today the Redmi brand manager Lu Weibing announced that his company has successfully managed to implement an FP scanner under an LCD, and even demonstrated how it works on a Redmi Note 8 Pro prototype.

The biggest issue with LCDs was the backlight module that that would interfere with the optical fingerprint sensor. However, the R&D department of Redmi managed to overcome this problem and is now working towards pushing this feature to mass productivity.

Back in 2019, some companies in China figured out how to put a sensor under an LCD panel and it looks like Redmi is the first smartphone manufacturer that will introduce it in a device. Weibing revealed that the issue was overcome with innovative use of infrared high-transmittance film material that actually lets the scanner “see” the finger.

There was no word which will be the first device with the tech. The tech probably arrives too lates for the Redmi Note 9 or the Redmi K30 Pro, but we might see in other Redmi phones in 2020.

Source (in Chinese) | Via