Fingerprint identification industry chain is maturing

In the past, fingerprinting was mainly used for punching cards, access control, or banking financial services. However, with the advent of mobile Internet, including information security, mobile payment, and other applications requiring a lot of biometric authentication, fingerprint recognition has become a selling point sought by major mobile phone manufacturers. Standard.

In 2013, Apple's iphone5S joined the fingerprint recognition function and began to promote the explosion of fingerprint recognition in the mobile phone industry. By 2014, it can be said that the first year of fingerprint identification mobile phones in China, including Huawei, OPPO, Meizu, Xiaomi and other well-known mobile phone brands have launched fingerprint recognition mobile phones. The Meizu MX4 PRO and Huawei Mate7 have achieved very good sales results. Since fingerprint recognition is not only a security entrance, but also an important entrance for identity recognition, mobile phone manufacturers, including mobile payment, smart homes, wearable devices, and internet companies, are creating benign ecological circles around fingerprint payment.

According to the data provided by the Rising Sun Mobile Phone Industry Research Institute, it is expected that the global shipment of fingerprint identification mobile phones will reach 150 million units in 2015. Compared with 56 million units in 2014, it will show explosive growth.

Fingerprint identification burst soon, modular plant to step up capacity expansion

In the past two years, domestic manufacturers have invested heavily in wafer production, packaging, and module production. This has led to great progress. At present, these links have already had the ability of mass production. It is understood that, including Kunshan Kyle, Ophelia, Truly, and other past production of touch, camera module packaging plant is also stepping up the layout of fingerprint packaging, module unit price reached 11 to 12 US dollars.

“As of now, Kyle Optoelectronics is the only supplier of mass-produced fingerprint modules in China.” Kai Kai, general manager of Kyle Optoelectronics, stated that Kyle has been developing R&D for Meizu MX4 since the beginning of 2014 and meeting for 9 months. PRO's fingerprint module has been shipped over 1K. He also stated that he expects that by the end of May-June 2015, the production capacity will reach 6 kk per month and the module yield will reach over 80%.

Domestic self-fingerprinting algorithm into short board

“If you want to export, what about the patented technology? Is it still using Chinese thinking and taking patents from Apple and other companies directly? Taiwanese companies are afraid to do this.” Guo Xiaowei, general manager of Mindray Microelectronics, warned domestic mobile phones. Manufacturers should pay attention to patent issues. In terms of core patents, there are still few domestic chip manufacturers with their own fingerprint algorithms, and the main patents are still concentrated in the hands of foreign companies. Apple acquired AuthenTec, a fingerprint sensor and solution provider, in 2012 and is currently mainly used in Apple's own products. In addition to AuthenTec, the fingerprint chip vendors of the Android camp include IDEX in Norway, FPC in Sweden, Synaptics Validity in China, Mindray in China, Aegis, and a few other companies with independent algorithms and core patents. Fingerprint recognition algorithm.

At present, the third-party fingerprint identification algorithm providers include Hangzhou Qianyuan and Shenzhen Fingerprint. According to Guo Zhi, a research and development engineer at Hangzhou Qianyuan, the principle of fingerprint recognition is the technical extraction of biometric features. In this process, the factors that cause fingerprint changes due to corrosion are also taken into account. "Every family's technology has certain differences in the understanding of biometric extraction, which also leads to the incompatibility of technologies with different prices." He said that because the industry does not have a unified standard, there is no unified testing equipment to define the product's eligibility criteria. This is just like the current situation of the capacitive screen market. On the one hand, it gives mobile terminal manufacturers a lot of room to play. On the other hand, it also increases the difficulty of the development of the handset terminal manufacturers' previous products.

According to Yi Haiping, president of Shenzhen Fingerprint Intelligence, the current fingerprint identification schemes are mostly poor in security and are easily cracked. "There is no independent chip mechanism for biometrics, and there is no security at all." Yi Haiping said that to protect biometric information, it is necessary to establish isolated areas on the hardware and wrap them up to ensure adequate safety. Now most of the mobile phone manufacturers use ARM's Trust Zone technology to store fingerprint information in the AP's Trust Zone. This is essentially a software technology and is a hidden danger. He believes that only using an independent algorithm chip is a truly safe approach.

Multiple biometric technologies will be parallel

There are also industry insiders believe that fingerprint identification does not fully guarantee the security of identity information, so it is necessary to match with other biometric technologies, such as iris technology. Beijing Tiancheng Shengye Co., Ltd. Zhang Yahua said that there are currently three more mature biometric technologies, including fingerprints, human faces, and irises. She believes that whether the iris or other biometric technologies will be useful in the future mobile terminal market. "The iris should be the most accurate biometric technology in the world. It contains 5 to 10 times the amount of information on biometric features that are common biometric features. Its level of security is very high. According to reports, currently Tiancheng Shengye has launched the world's smallest iris recognition module, which features natural iris recognition with a module that can achieve a natural reading distance (7 to 30cm).

Can 3D fingerprinting bring more applications?

As the fingerprint identification supply chain matures, the lack of related applications has become a bottleneck restricting the development of the fingerprint identification industry. At present, the company that is most interested in fingerprint identification technology in China is Ali. It is understood that Taobao has supported Samsung S5, Note4, and iphone6 ​​and other three devices that support fingerprint recognition in 2014, and Huawei also added Huawei Mate7.

"We use any technology, whether it is fingerprint payment or iris recognition, we must first enrich the application and establish an ecological environment through application." Peng Haibo, president of Huawei's terminal mobile phone product line, said Samsung and Apple's mobile phone in Alipay's payment limit Both are a thousand dollars, and Mate7 has no limit. This is because Huawei has made tremendous innovations in security and created a trustworthy secure payment environment. “When we set up a fingerprinting standard with Alipay, the first thing that comes to mind is that it is safe to let fingerprints establish a trustworthy payment environment. The security feature of our largest fingerprint payment is that all fingerprints are only written and not read. All our fingerprints There is a local security zone in the mobile phone, and fingerprints will not be transmitted at any payment link, and it is impossible to intercept my fingerprints on the Internet platform.This kind of fingerprint payment security environment has won Alipay's trust in Huawei products. ”

In addition, Ali also cooperated with Hangzhou Zhaoyuan, a provider of fingerprint algorithms, to launch a million-level fingerprint image search library and launched a multi-function fingerprint payment terminal. This terminal allows Alipay's certified merchants to conveniently and securely implement financial transactions online, while also enabling merchant point management. For fingerprinting, everything is just beginning. In the future, if fingerprint identification is to reach millions of households, it will also require terminal and system vendors to dig out fingerprint applications other than mobile payment. The author believes that in addition to mobile phones and other mobile terminals, wearable Internet of things will be the next key direction of fingerprint recognition.

Coincidentally, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon Sense ID 3D fingerprinting technology at the Mobile World Congress 2015 that ended recently. Unlike the capacitive sensors commonly used in the industry, Qualcomm uses ultrasonic sensors. Because ultrasound can penetrate a variety of materials - including glass, metal, and sapphire, which means that sensors can be integrated in touchscreens, cell phone cases and even smart watches, the technology is also expected to achieve higher recognition accuracy. However, there are also industry insiders who are skeptical of this technology and believe that this method is not extracted leather fingerprint template, too many ways to crack, there are loopholes in the security.