Patent ID: 8278946

Claim:
A method comprising: placing a fingerprint sensor in one of a wait-for-event and a wake-on-event mode; transmitting a probing signal to a fingerprint sensing transmitting element, comprising one of a stand alone wake-up transmitting element and a fingerprint sensing wake-up transmitting element, selected from a plurality of fingerprint sensing transmitting elements and selectively kept active, while the remaining fingerprint sensing transmitting elements of the plurality of fingerprint sensing transmitting elements are in a non-active mode, to reduce power consumption by the fingerprint sensor; receiving a response signal from one of the stand alone wake-up transmitting element and the fingerprint sensing wake-up transmitting element at a fingerprint sensing receiving element; monitoring the response signal on the fingerprint sensing receiving element to determine if a finger is present in a fingerprint sensing area; and removing the fingerprint sensor from the one of the wait-for-event and the wake-on-event mode in response to the response signal.