Patent ID: 7915601

Claim:
An electronic device comprising: a portable housing; an optical source carried by said portable housing; an optical dispersion finger sensor carried by said portable housing and comprising an integrated circuit substrate laterally neighboring said optical source so that light propagates into and is dispersed by the user's finger with at least a portion of the dispersed light exiting the user's finger in a direction toward said integrated circuit substrate, and at least one optical dispersion sensing pixel on said integrated circuit substrate and exposed on said portable housing to thereby define a finger sensing area for sensing dispersed light from the user's finger to generate optical dispersion biometric data from the user's finger based upon sliding placement of the user's finger adjacent said integrated circuit substrate; said optical source comprising an optical generator, an optical guide having an input directly connected to said optical generator, and a first output exposed on said portable housing laterally adjacent the finger sensing area; and a processor carried by said portable housing and connected to said at least one optical dispersion sensing pixel to enable at least one device function based upon the optical dispersion biometric data from the user's finger.