Billions and billions tied to mobile multi-finger biometric sensors

Numbers like 2.5 billion get attention, especially when talking about how much more secure a biometric scanner can be.

That is how much more secure Samsung is claiming it can make fingerprint biometrics in “just a couple of years,” according to trade community and publisher SamMobile.

Researchers at Samsung say they are developing an “all in one” print-sensing feature that uses an entire OLED phone or tablet screen that takes readings from multiple finger pads simultaneously. It looks like the capability could show up first on a Galaxy device, says SamMobile.

The idea was sketched this summer at the IMID conference in South Korea by J.S. Choi, CEO and president of Samsung Display Co. (Video here, but not translated from Korean.)

Placing three finger pads on a screen reportedly makes a device 2.5 billion times more secure than one pad on a small scanner. Details are otherwise scarce.

A sponsored post in trade publication OLED-info makes much the same case. French organic photo diode manufacturer Isorg says it has been working on multi-fingerprint scanning for “a number of years.” Its approach is a thin sensor laminated to an OLED display.

The content recognizes Samsung’s announcement and says it validates Isorg’s work while also claiming it is closer to mass production than the Korean giant is.

In an odd bit of synchronicity, Isorg has its own 2.5 billion figure. It says that the global market for a multi-finger biometric recognition product – minus Apple, which seems to have moved on from fingers for security – is at least $2.5 billion.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  fingerprint scanners  |  fingerprint sensors  |  Isorg  |  OLED  |  research and development  |  Samsung