Apple Inc.

Stmicroelectronics S.r.l.

Authentec, Inc.

Stmicroelectronics Gmbh

Upek, Inc.

Other

Sgs-thomson Microelectronics S.r.l.

Appple Inc.

Giovanni Gozzini

Mohammad Yeke Yazdandoost

Dale R Setlak

Alan H Kramer

Brian Michael King

Ehsan Khajeh

Marcus Yip

Aaron Scott Tucker

Roberto Antonio Canegallo

Marco Sabatini

Mauro Chinosi

Marduke Yousefpor

Pavel Mrazek

Robert Henry Bond

Gordon Scot Franza

Pier Luigi Rolandi

Jean-Marie Bussat

Henry Hung Yang

Martin Subert

Petr Kohout

Andrew W Joyce

Michael Benjamin Wittenberg

Michael K McCord

Jason S Griesbach

Ondrej Konopka

Benjamin B Lyon

Gregory Thomas Minteer

Pierluigi Rolandi

Loris Giuseppe Navoni

Patrick J Landy

Volodymyr Borshch

John Raff

Matthew Emanuel Last

Ron Alan Hopkinson

Tong Chen

Mehmet Mutlu

Prashanth S Holenarsipur

Mark T Winkler

Omid Momtahan

Richard H Koch

Wenrui Cai

Chau H Nguyen

Orit A Shamir

Daniel B Sargent

Jerry G Dooley

Sora Kim

Scott A Myers

Alexander Kalnitsky

Lucy Elizabeth Browning

Martin Paul Grunthaner

William Matthew Vieta

Anand K Chamakura

Lun Tsai

Meng-Huan Ho

Manohar B Srikanth

Niva A Ran

Vito Fabbrizio

Akshay Bhat

Philip Leong

Rui Jin

Henric Larsson

Vladimir Lieberzeit

Xia Li

Steven Porter Hotelling

Yafei Bi

Kingsuk Brahma

Gennadiy A Agranov

Sunggu Kang

Craig Alan Marciniak

Harry Michael Siegel

Steven E Molesa

Mohammad Ali Jangda

Oray Orkun Cellek

Yakov G Soskind

Peter J Kardassakis

Patrick E O'Brien

George Ho Yin Mak

Peter G Panagas

Jaein Choi

Bhusan Gupta

Gershon Rosenblum

Leah M Gum

Eric S Winokur

Xiaofan Niu

Andrew Deng

Timothy D Koch

Frederic Raynal

Fred P Lane

Robert Leo Sheridan

Sandeep Chalasani

Ran Xu

Marco Onorato

Patrick B Wright

Srdjan D Sobajic

James Chester Meador

Richard W Lim

Bhusian Guptz

Hui-Shan Chang

Yu Hsuan Chao

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for sensing ambient light with a display assembly are provided. A display assembly may include at least one light-generating component and at least one light-detecting component, each of which may be positioned underneath a single opening in an electronic device housing.

Ambient light sensing display assemblies

Disclosed herein are electronic devices having touch input surfaces. A user's touch input or press on the touch input surface is detected using a set of lasers, such as vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) that emit beams of light toward the touch input surface. The user's touch causes changes in the self-mixing interference within the VCSEL of the emitted light with reflected light, such as from the touch input surface. Deflection and movement (e.g., drag motion) of the user's touch is determined from detected changes in the VCSELs' operation due to the self-mixing interference.

Self-mixing interference based sensors for characterizing touch input

An elongated biometric device provides a slim solution for capturing biometric data, and may be placed on a portion of an electronic device having limited space, such as a side of the electronic device. The elongated biometric device may include a force sensor, which may be positioned within a housing of the electronic device and actuated through posts extending from the elongated biometric device through the housing to transfer an applied force to the force sensor.

Elongated fingerprint sensor

A micro-light-emitting diode (LED) display includes a number of micro-LED pixel elements and multiple optical sensors integrated with the micro-LED pixel elements. A transparent conductor layer is disposed over the micro-LED pixel elements and optical sensors.

Embedded optical sensors in a micro-led display

A biometric input system for an electronic device is provided. The biometric input system may be a fingerprint sensing system. The biometric input system includes a biometric sensing component, which may be a capacitive sensing component. The biometric input system also includes a composite cover element, which may be a dielectric cap or coating, and the biometric sensing component is capable of receiving a biometric input from a user through the composite cover element. Electronic devices including the biometric input system are also provided.

Electronic device having a biometric input system including a composite cover element

Acoustic touch and/or force sensing system architectures and methods for acoustic touch and/or force sensing can be used to detect a position of an object touching a surface and an amount of force applied to the surface by the object. The position and/or an applied force can be determined using time-of-flight (TOF) techniques, for example. Acoustic touch sensing can utilize transducers (e.g., piezoelectric) to simultaneously transmit ultrasonic waves along a surface and through a thickness of a deformable material. The location of the object and the applied force can be determined based on the amount of time elapsing between the transmission of the waves and receipt of the reflected waves. In some examples, an acoustic touch sensing system can be insensitive to water contact on the device surface, and thus acoustic touch sensing can be used for touch sensing in devices that may become wet or fully submerged in water.

Differential acoustic touch and force sensing

An acoustic imaging system coupled to an acoustic medium to define an imaging surface. The acoustic imaging system includes an array of piezoelectric acoustic transducers formed at least in part from a thin-film piezoelectric material, such as PVDF. The array is coupled to the acoustic medium opposite the imaging surface and formed using a thin-film manufacturing process over an application-specific integrated circuit that, in turn, is configured to leverage on or more beamforming scan operations to drive the array of piezoelectric actuators to generate an image of an object at least partially wetting to the imaging surface.

Beamforming optimization for segmented thin-film acoustic imaging systems incorporated in personal portable electronic devices

An acoustic imaging system coupled to an acoustic medium to define an imaging surface. The acoustic imaging system includes an array of piezoelectric acoustic transducers formed at least in part from a thin-film piezoelectric material, such as PVDF. The array is coupled to the acoustic medium opposite the imaging surface and formed using a thin-film manufacturing process over an application-specific integrated circuit that, in turn, is configured to leverage the array of piezoelectric actuators to generate an image of an object at least partially wetting to the imaging surface.

Signal processing for segmented thin-film acoustic imaging systems for portable electronic devices

An acoustic imaging system coupled to an acoustic imaging medium to define an imaging surface. The acoustic imaging system includes an array of piezoelectric acoustic transducers formed at least in part from a thin-film piezoelectric material, such as PVDF. The array is coupled to the acoustic imaging medium opposite the imaging surface and formed using a thin-film manufacturing process over an application-specific integrated circuit that, in turn, is configured to leverage the array of piezoelectric actuators to generate an image of an object at least partially wetting to the imaging surface.

Regional gain control for segmented thin-film acoustic imaging systems

An acoustic imaging system coupled to a sensing plate to define an imaging surface. The acoustic imaging system includes an array of piezoelectric acoustic transducers coupled to the sensing plate opposite the imaging surface and formed using a thin-film manufacturing process over an application-specific integrated circuit that, in turn, is configured to leverage the array of piezoelectric actuators to generate an image of an object at least partially wetting to the imaging surface.

Thin-film acoustic imaging system for imaging through an exterior surface of an electronic device housing

An acoustic imaging system includes multiple transducers disposed to circumscribe a portion of substrate. An acoustic imaging system also includes a controller and an image resolver. The transducers convert electrical signals into mechanical energy and/or mechanical energy into electrical signals. The controller is adapted to apply an electrical signal to the transducers which, in response, induce a mechanical wave, such as a surface wave, into the circumscribed portion. The controller is also adapted to receive electrical signals from the transducers. The image resolver uses the electrical signals received by the controller in order to construct an image of an object in physical contact with the substrate.

Acoustic imaging system architecture

An apparatus for fingerprint sensing includes a touch-display layer covered by a transparent layer. The touch-display layer can emit light to illuminate a finger surface touching the transparent layer. The touch-display layer is transparent to reflected light from the surface to underlying layers. The underlying layers include a collimator layer and a pixelated image sensor. The collimator layer can collimate the reflected light, and the pixelated image sensor can sense the collimated reflected light. The collimator can collimate the reflected light to enable a one-to-one imaging ratio between an area of the finger surface touching the transparent layer and an area of a corresponding image formed on the pixelated image sensor.

Under-display optical fingerprint sensor with NFV collimator and TFT/organic imager

System and method for acoustic touch and force sensing

An electronic device may have an optical touch sensor that is insensitive to the presence of moisture. The display may present images through a display cover layer. A light source may illuminate an external object such as a user's finger when the object contacts a surface of the display cover layer. This creates scattered light that may be detected by an array of light sensors. A metasurface grating may be used to couple light from the light source into the display cover layer at an angle such that total internal reflection within the display cover layer is sustained across the display cover layer even when the display cover layer is immersed in water or otherwise exposed to moisture. Additional metasurface gratings may be formed on the display cover layer to redirect light propagating within the display cover layer away from edges that might otherwise defeat total internal reflection.

Moisture-insensitive optical touch sensors

Growing community of inventors

Berkeley, CA, United States of America

Giovanni Gozzini