The semiconductor industry is Samsung’s playing ground, with several categories ranging from DRAM, NAND and SoCs under the tech giant’s thumb. Now, Samsung is looking to break into the fingerprint sensor market, thus removing the elements of reliability from other manufacturers. These fingerprint sensors could most likely be integrated with future mobile devices, giving Samsung an even bigger advantage than before.
Samsung Electronics’ LSI Division Has Been Reported to Be Working on Fingerprint Sensors – Could Possibly Be Present in the Upcoming Galaxy S8
With mid to high-end phones sporting fingerprint readers, Samsung eyes huge growth in this particular market, and sees the opportunity to take a hefty market share from the likes of Sweden’s FPC and US-based Synaptics in the years to come. According to a source close to the matter, Samsung’s LSI division has been working on fingerprint sensor chips since last year and is said to be in the final stages of development. Commercialization of these chips is said to take place next year, which gives us a feeling that the upcoming Galaxy S8 could sport Samsung’s home-made sensor.
The upcoming flagship is already reported to sport an optical fingerprint reader, which will be integrated underneath the display, thus giving the device a very high screen-to-body ratio. The objective will be to incorporate these chips inside cheaper smartphones, but they will still find their way in high-end phones in the future. It is also possible that the newer fingerprint chip will integrate nicely with Samsung’s own mobile devices such as the user interface, allowing users to effortlessly use the security feature for more than just unlocking their devices.
With Samsung Pay reaching a great deal of popularity, the security feature could be integrated into this and will allow users to quickly authenticate payments. Unfortunately, Samsung itself has yet to announce that it will be tapping into the fingerprint sensor market, so take this report with a grain of salt till we have more information on the matter. Just remember that when Samsung announced its Q3 2016 earnings guidance, it was able to generate a profit despite suffering heavy losses thanks to the Galaxy Note 7.
This shows that there are other avenues of the industry that Samsung can rely on and by tapping into the fingerprint market, there are a boatload of applications that the firm can target apart from smartphones and tablets.
