Apparatus and method

A user equipment, UE, device comprising:

• a display screen;
• a processor;
• and
• a cover glass comprising a substrate and a capacitive biometric skin contact sensor coupled to the substrate and configured to resolve the contours of skin proximal to the sensor;
• wherein the cover glass overlies the display screen for protection thereof;
• and
• wherein the capacitive biometric skin contact sensor comprises:
• a plurality of gate drive channels;
• a plurality of read-out channels;
• a sensor array of sensor pixels, wherein each sensor pixel comprises a thin film transistor and an at least partially transparent capacitive sensing electrode coupled to the thin film transistor, and wherein each of the sensor pixels is coupled to both:
• (i) a gate drive channel to receive a scanning signal;
• and (ii) a read-out channel to provide a read-out signal;
• and
• conversion circuitry configured to process read-out signals received from sensor pixels to obtain biometric skin contact data therefrom, and to transmit biometric skin contact data to the processor,
• wherein the substrate comprises one or more reference features arranged in a selected alignment between the cover glass and the display screen,
• wherein the sensor array of sensor pixels of the biometric skin contact sensor is arranged at a selected offset from said one or more reference features,
• wherein a tolerance for the selected offset of the sensor array from the one or more reference features is less than a pixel pitch for the sensor pixels of the sensor array.

A capacitive biometric skin contact sensor configured to resolve the contours of skin proximal to the sensor and arranged to be coupled to a substrate to provide a cover glass, wherein said substrate is arranged to overlie a display screen of a user equipment, UE, device for protecting said display screen, and wherein said display screen comprises a display array having:

• (i) a plurality of active regions comprising display pixels and/or display subpixels, wherein the active regions are distributed across the display array according to a first repeating pattern;
• and (ii) a plurality of inactive regions, wherein the inactive regions are arranged in a first grid-like structure so that the active regions are separated from each other by the inactive regions, the skin contact sensor comprising:
• a plurality of gate drive channels;
• a plurality of read-out channels;
• a sensor array of sensor pixels, wherein each sensor pixel comprises a thin film transistor and an at least partially transparent capacitive sensing electrode coupled to the thin film transistor, and wherein each of the sensor pixels is coupled to both:
• (i) a gate drive channel to receive a scanning signal;
• and (ii) a read-out channel to provide a read-out signal;
• and
• conversion circuitry configured to process read-out signals received from sensor pixels to obtain biometric skin contact data therefrom and to transmit biometric skin contact data to a processor of said UE device;
• wherein the skin contact sensor is arranged with the non-transparent components of the sensor in a second grid-like structure;
• and
• wherein the second grid like structure is selected to match the first grid-like structure to enable the sensor to be coupled to said substrate to provide said cover glass, and said cover glass to be installed on said display screen so that light output from said active regions of said display array passes through the sensor;
• and
• further comprising one or more reference features arranged to enable a selected alignment to be provided between the sensor and a said display screen of said UE device,
• wherein the sensor array of sensor pixels of the biometric skin contact sensor is arranged at a selected offset from said one or more reference features, wherein a tolerance for the selected offset of the sensor array from the one or more reference features is less than a pixel pitch for the sensor pixels of the sensor array.