Shipments of fingerprint-on-display (FoD) sensors grew 674% last year as FoDs replace silicon-based capacitive chips in smartphones, says a new Omedia report. 228.3 million FoD sensors were shipped in 2019, compared to 29.5 million the previous year, they say.
“FoD sensors have become a critical biometric identification technology for smartphones,” said Calvin Hsieh, director, touch and user interface at Omdia. “Today’s smartphone displays are longer than ever, completely covering the front sides of handsets and leaving no space to locate capacitive fingerprint sensor chips on the surface. FoD sensors bypass this issue because they are hidden beneath the display, allowing them to avoid influencing the appearance of smartphones. This advantage is generating massive demand growth for FoD sensors.”
FoD shipments are expected to top 400 million units this year. More than 70 smartphone models integrated FoD in 2019. FoD can offer the same type of user experience of fingerprint recognition experience as capacitive chips, without requiring any learning. The invisibility of FoD also gives smartphone makers the freedom to offer a handset design absent of any notches.
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