Qualcomm is holding its annual summit in Hawaii and has revealed a slew of new details about its next flagship silicon, the Snapdragon 865. This will be the system-on-a-chip (SoC for short) that wages war with the likes of Apple’s A13 Bionic, which powers the iPhone 11 Pro, and the Huawei-designed Kirin 990, which provides the brains for the 5G-compatible Huawei Mate 30 Pro.
In a packed press conference, Qualcomm executives revealed a raft of new details about the capabilities of the chipset, which is set to power the vast majority of Android flagships due to launch in the next 12 months, including the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S11 (although Samsung does use its own rival chip in some markets), the LG G9, OnePlus 8 and Pixel 5.
But the silicon chip wasn’t the only exciting news revealed at the press conference. Qualcomm executives also took the wraps off a next-generation ultra-sonic fingerprint sensor. Unlike optical fingerprint scanners – like the one found in the OnePlus 7T Pro – which has to illuminate your fingertip to check whether it matches a saved image of the pattern, the ultra-sonic uses ultrasound to get an impression of the surface texture of your prints.
This has a number of benefits. First up, the handset doesn’t need to illuminate the screen to light your fingertip and scan it (so you won’t be blinded when you try to unlock your smartphone in a dark room first thing in the morning) and secondly, it means the scanner can still authenticate your fingerprint when the screen is wet. During the latest tech summit, the US company announced a new 3D Sonic Max fingerprint scanner which it claims is the world’s largest – at 17 times bigger than its predecessor.
In fact, it’s so big that Qualcomm claims it can be used to authenticate two fingers at the same time.
According to Qualcomm Senior Director of Product Management Gordon Thomas, the first generation of ultra-sonic fingerprint scanners could only detect part of your finger because of the diminutive size – typically measuring around 4mm x 9mm. The second-generation ultra-sonic scanner could solve all of that.
The Qualcomm 3D Sonic Max scanner measures 20mm x 30mm – that’s a 600-square millimetre area. According to Qualcomm, this dramatically decreases the chances of the system being fooled. Gordon Thomas says the firm is aiming for a one in a million accuracy. For comparison, that’s the same that Apple claims for its Face ID facial scanning technology and more than the Touch ID fingerprint sensor that it replaced on its flagship iPhone series.
Samsung was the first to use Qualcomm’s first-generation ultra-sonic fingerprint scanner in its flagship Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10 Plus and Galaxy S10 5G smartphone. This allowed users to use their fingerprints to unlock banking apps, secure folders, as well as the handset itself.
It follows that Samsung will likely turn to this second-generation fingerprint scanner for the follow-up to the Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10 Plus and Galaxy S10 5G. With the ability to use two fingers at once and an almost Face ID-matching level of security, it could make for a worthwhile upgrade for Samsung smartphone owners.
And it’s not just Samsung that’s believed to be looking at the second-generation ultra-sonic fingerprint scanner from Qualcomm. Arch-rival Apple is also believed to be looking into incorporating the technology into its next flagship iPhone for those who don’t like to use Face ID, or in those instances when scanning your face isn’t a convenient way to unlock your handset.
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