Apple FaceID Components Reverse Engineered

SystemPlus publishes reverse enginering reports on iPhone X ToF Proximity Sensor & Flood Illuminator by ST and IR Dot Projector with folded optics.

"Located in the front above the main speaker, the proximity sensor/flood illuminator is packaged using optical LGA. The device is unique to Apple. In the past, STMicroelectronics released a custom proximity sensor two times smaller (2.80 x 2.40 mm) than the devices in its portfolio, based on FlightSense technology. This new version comes with a flood illuminator used in the True Depth system. The flood illuminator is an NIR VCSEL with a wide beam that illuminates the face and allows for nighttime user recognition with the NIR camera. The packaging is specially designed for the flood illuminator’s heat management."

ST Proximity Sensor

The structured light dot projector features 4 innovations:

• Its packaging exploits a novel thermal management approach with ceramic substrate inserted
• Its NIR VCSEL diode has a dedicated light emission profile driven by a Broadcom integrated circuit
• A folded optical path using wafer level optic
• Its active diffractive optical element (DOE)