Have you ever complained the trouble of remembering numerous passwords of our various cards as well as smartphone and notebook? By the end of the year, do you feel a kind of tense atmosphere that everyone is very cautious about their handset to against thief? Now, tell good news, the situation may be changed quickly by the upcoming fingerprint sensor.
Given the security and privacy concern, unique and safe fingerprint recognition has always been gaining traction. According to
Global Information (GII), global market for silicon-based fingerprint sensors is projected to reach $255 Million by 2018. And in China, with the improvement of fingerprint authentication technology, Chinese fingerprint reader market will see dozens of billion dollars in next five years.
Despite the years of development, this year is set to be the takeoff year for fingerprint reader, due to the application in smartphone. For the sake of saving the continuous stock value loss (about 40%) and the fierce competition in smartphone segment, Apple is said to add fingerprint recognition function in the iPhone 5S, which may come out in September this year. The movement will boil the fingerprint sensor market as the touch screen in 2007, some analysts said.
Earlier last year, when Apple bought Authentec, a fingerprint sensor manufacturer, a lot of analysts predicted smartphone would boom the fingerprint recognition technology. Driven by the price dropping, smartphone, with quarterly growth rate of over 46%, shows large hope to completely replace feature phones and achieve large-scale popularity, which naturally uplift the related component market. In addition, the fully implementation of fingerprint registration of ID card in China adds more fuel to the bright future of fingerprint sensor.
Heading into future, PC, cars, USB drives, garage door openers, transport and mobile payments all are the driving forces. Considering the market potential, several semiconductor giants including ST, Fujitsu, TI, Atmel and Authentic, are laying out this field. For instance, STMicroelectronics in 2004 spun off its fingerprint sensor business into an independent company called Upek, becoming the second largest fingerprint sensor suppliers now; Fujitsu has also announced to enter the silicon-based fingerprint sensor market, starting to offer products to IC card and mobile phone market. Have your prepared your supply chain for the cake?
Tags：
fingerprint sensor, fingerprint recognition technology