IOS 14.2 on Iphone SE 1st gen - Hardware obsolete or IOS issue?

hi,

I have issues where all of a sudden my phone would just stop accepting touch screen input and sometimes does ghost press. I am using 14.2 but the issue did not happen after the upgrade to 14.2. This happens during: unlocking the phone , fingerprint will unlock the phone but succeeding key press would not be recognized and sometimes makes ghost actions in the touch screen.

The only work around for me is to press the power button to lock it and press the home button again to unlock, then everything goes back to normal.

The issue and the workaround can be reproduced anytime. i have tried the following:

clearing the phone memory (not sure what it is called), long key press on the home button then long press on the home button - did not work

did a restart via the options inside the phone - did not work

uninstalled any app update that happened the day the issue started happening - did not work

reset all setting - did not work

did a full wipe /erase of the phone and restored from back up - did not work.

tried to turnoff a bunch of settings in where ever i can find, - did not work.

I am not sure if this is a Hardware issue as i can preform the workaround and everything works again normally untill it auto locks again. any thoughts? i cant go back to older IOS versions as it is not allowed.