One of the features many iPhone 6 concepts have featured is a fingerprint sensor. The majority of them put the sensor right under the home button, although there was one the other day that put it right in the middle of the screen and utilized it for logging into Facebook. Now we finally have a patent which gives us some indication of what the iPhone 6’s fingerprint sensor might actually look like.
The Development Of Apple’s Fingerprint Sensor
The idea of the fingerprint sensor has been developing over time at Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), according to Patently Apple. The company was reportedly working on them for both the MacBook and iOS since 2009 or earlier. In 2010, there was apparently some indication of a fingerprint sensor that would be under the display of the device. It would be used for e-commerce and also just for basic security for the iPhone.
Patent For The iPhone 6’s Fingerprint Sensor?
According to this patent filing, the fingerprint sensor will be located right in the bezel of the iPhone 6. Users would simply swipe their finger over the sensor’s surface, and the sensor would catch a few strips of the fingerprint and then assemble the entire fingerprint using software loaded inside the iPhone. This type of sensor is often used when a small one is needed.
In the patent, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) defines a bezel as a “unitary substantially uniformly composed structure, most typically metal or conductive plastic.” It could be arch-shaped and electrically conductive. The sensor itself would be made up of a substrate on which a die with sensor circuitry would be mounted. Both the bezel and the die would be mostly encased in a structure that would protect them, although the protection would be in a very thin layer on part of the surface of the die.
So will this be what the iPhone 6’s fingerprint sensor looks like? It’s worth noting that this is a fairly new patent filing. It was originally filed in the first quarter of this year. And of course the question of whether we will see the iPhone 5S or the iPhone 6 this year still looms over us.
