Don't say you know fingerprint recognition. Fingerprint recognition technology for flagship phones is not as simple as you think.

Recently, Xiaomi released its latest flagship phone "Redmi Note 3" priced at RMB 1,000. It is understood that the phone will be equipped with a metal body and fingerprint recognition. This phone is Xiaomi's first phone equipped with fingerprint recognition and is priced at only RMB 1,000.

Nowadays, press-type fingerprint recognition is no longer exclusive to Apple phones. A large number of Android phones have also enjoyed the convenience of fingerprint recognition. Even starting from the second half of this year, fingerprint recognition has begun to become popular in domestic thousand-yuan phones.

Why did the high-end fingerprint recognition suddenly become "popular"? Who pushed it into the trend of thousand-yuan phones? This starts with the past and present of "fingerprint recognition".

Fingerprint recognition categories:

To understand "fingerprint recognition", we must first explain that there are two types of fingerprint recognition solutions used on mobile phones, one is swipe fingerprint recognition, and the other is press fingerprint recognition.

The swipe fingerprint recognition solution is similar to the solution used in our previous notebooks. When using it, you need to slide the fingerprint joints of your fingers from top to bottom. The first mobile phone to adopt this solution was the MB860 launched by Motorola in 2011. Later, HTC ONE MAX and Samsung S5 also adopted the same fingerprint recognition solution.

However, since this solution is complicated to operate and requires high operation accuracy and low recognition rate, it did not become popular in the subsequent market.

Current mainstream fingerprint solution providers

On the contrary, in 2013, Apple released the iPhone 5s equipped with another fingerprint recognition "press-type fingerprint recognition". This solution only requires placing the finger in the fingerprint recognition area, and no other actions are required, and the unlocking is completed instantly. Compared with the former, press-type fingerprint recognition has inherent advantages and better user experience. It is the mainstream fingerprint recognition solution that is still used today.

However, within a year of the launch of iPhone 5s, no other manufacturer adopted a similar solution. It was not until September 2014, a year later, that Huawei adopted a similar press-type fingerprint recognition solution on its flagship MATE 7 last year.

Could it be that Apple’s unique black technology has been transferred to other manufacturers?

In fact, Apple's fingerprint recognition technology Touch ID was not invented by Apple. It was invented by a company called AuthenTech. However, before AuthenTech publicly released this technology, Apple spent 350 million US dollars to acquire it.

The reason why Apple did this is very simple. First, it is for the convenience of using the technology itself; second, it is to maintain its advantage over its competitors. This makes it almost impossible for other manufacturers to use this mature press-type fingerprint recognition solution.

This situation lasted for a year before it was broken. In September 2014, Huawei Mate 7 was released. Its press-type fingerprint recognition technology was the most eye-catching feature at the time of its release. Officials claimed that this fingerprint sensor can unlock the phone very quickly, taking only 1 second, and the phone can be unlocked in the process of taking it out.

Unfortunately, the creator of this technology is neither Huawei nor AuthenTech, which was acquired by Apple, but a Swedish company called Fingerprint Cards.

In addition, the MATE7 does not integrate the fingerprint recognition on the front like Apple, but sets it on the back of the body.

The reason for this is that, firstly, it may be due to its own ID design considerations, and secondly, because the mate7 uses the early fpc technology, the fingerprint module is relatively thick, and in order to integrate it into the body, it can only choose the back with a relatively large capacity.

At present, the mainstream fingerprint recognition solutions on the market all use the solutions provided by FPC. Here, a table is listed for your convenience.

  The data is collated by FPC official website

It can be seen that most of the solutions currently adopted by domestic manufacturers are provided by FPC. And according to the above table, the fingerprint recognition solutions adopted by thousand-yuan phones are mostly early FPC technologies (mainly FPC 1020 and FPC1025), and their cost is not very high (reportedly around 30 yuan), so they are widely popular in the domestic market.

In addition to FPC, there are two other companies in the world that provide similar fingerprint recognition solutions.

One of them is Goodix Technology from Shenzhen, China. Its main representative product is the fingerprint recognition solution on the MX4 pro - m touch. It is also the earliest solution to apply press-type fingerprint recognition on the front of Android phones. Unfortunately, Goodix Technology has not launched any new products since completing this project.

The other is from Synaptics, the company that supplies fingerprint solutions for Samsung S6 and NOTE5. However, its solution is currently only used by Samsung.

Future development directions:

Fingerprint recognition has developed to this day and will definitely be a trend in the future. Currently, FPC's latest technology FPC1145 has also been mass-produced. The fingerprint recognition module it uses is thinner and longer, allowing it to be installed on the middle frame of the mobile phone and used as a power button. (Currently, Huawei Honor 7i and Sony Z5p are equipped with this module)

The power button of Z5P is also the fingerprint recognition button

 
Goodix Technology is also not idle at the moment. It is reported that they are developing a fingerprint recognition solution (IFS) that can be installed under the glass panel on the front of the mobile phone. The advantage of this solution is that it is convenient for users to use on the front, while maintaining the integrity of the front panel of the mobile phone and enhancing the aesthetics.

Conclusion:

With the development of science and technology, convenient and practical fingerprint recognition is no longer a technical barrier or a product unique to Apple. The current market has also proved that the popularity of fingerprint recognition will be an irreversible trend in the future. In the market next year or later, the addition of a fingerprint recognition module will no longer be a manifestation of differentiation for a certain mobile phone, and the lack of a fingerprint module will become a shortcoming of the mobile phone. At present, domestic manufacturers use fingerprint recognition to cooperate with Alipay and WeChat payment. After popularization, it will be more convenient and safer for people's daily life.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.