The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has officially announced Samsung’s new smartphone design patent at the end of October 2018. Although the actual patent is in Korean, we can still see what Samsung has been up to lately. It seems like Samsung is planning a true full-screen smartphone, with 100% display-to-body ratio. According to the patent, Samsung plans to achieve this brilliant goal by placing the fingerprint, front-camera, and other sensors under the display. This will allow Samsung to implement a beautiful notch-less edge-to-edge display and create a smartphone that has never been seen before.
Taking a look at the first image from the patent, Samsung has detailed the outline of the device. The patented device’s design seems like a Note series phone. We can see that the camera sensor is going to be under the display, through a hole. How this in-display camera will work is still unknown. Thanks to the hole in the display, the fingerprint sensor, camera sensor, illumination sensor, and all the other sensors are going to be under the display.
In the teardown of the patented device, we can see that the phone is sandwiched in glass panels, with the actual front display having a tiny hole in the middle. The antennas are going to be located between the display and the cover panels. From what we could get from the patent itself, Samsung does ensure that this arrangement does not affect the performance of the antennas.
Samsung took things to the next level with the block diagram of the patented device. In addition to a plethora of sensors under the display, the patented phone also contains a hologram device, a projector, and an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor.
While the others are a far-fetched thought at this point in time, the ultrasonic fingerprint sensor is in the making. According to many rumors, Samsung is working on an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor for the upcoming Galaxy S10. The ultrasonic fingerprint sensor will allow the device to recognize fingerprints anywhere on the display and it will be very fast – faster than the in-display fingerprint sensor found in the OnePlus 6T.
This new Samsung patent is certainly interesting to see. An industry-leading company like Samsung can certainly pull-off technologies like this, however, some of these still seem a bit far-fetched. We will see what Samsung has in store for us with the upcoming Galaxy S10, which is expected to launch early next year. The Samsung Galaxy S10 is rumored to boast all kinds of amazing features, such as triple-cameras, 5G connectivity and a 7nm Qualcomm chip.