Infineon and Qualcomm Working on Time-of-Flight Sensor-Based Authentication

German chip manufacturer Infineon is partnering with Qualcomm to enable facial recognition authentication. The company wants to enable three-dimensional facial recognition via a time-of-flight sensor.

The authentication will be in the Mobile Platform of the Snapdragon 865 chipset, the company writes in a press release. Infineon wants to make its own REAL3 sensor suitable for mobile devices. The REAL3 is a time-of-flight sensor that the company designed together with the German pmdtechnologies. It is a 3D sensor of 4.4 x 5.1 mm. The company presented the sensor at the CES trade show in Las Vegas. The REAL3 sensor can create three-dimensional images of objects such as the face, but also, for example, the hands.

Infineon is now partnering with Qualcomm to integrate the ToF sensor into the Snapdragon 865 Mobile Platform. As a result, all phones with the REAL3 sensor could use, for example, biometric login, or confirm payments on the phone, the company said. There are already several phones that have their own time-of-flight sensor, such as the LG V60. There are also rumors that this year’s new iPhones will get a time-of-flight sensor.