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Tuesday 18 November 2008
Design
Latest News
|NewsletterCommunications
Fingerprint recognition too costly for security in mobiles
Wednesday 9 March 2005
Fingerprint recognition has a long way to go before it can enable
or disable mobile phones to counter mobile phone theft.
"If I could sell fingerprint recognition for $1 I'd have a huge number of customers," Alan Kramer, president of UPEK told EW.
The most inexpensive of UPEK's sensors costs $10. "We expect to get that down to $3-$5 eighteen months from now," said Kramer.
It uses a silicon sensor over which the user places a finger.
For higher value products such as laptops, the sensor used is much larger, and sells for $40-$50. This is used in the IBM Notepad and Kramer said IBM charges customers $50 for the fingerprint option.
Gateway, Micron PC, Fujitsu and Samsung also offer a fingerprint recognition option based on UPEK's product.
"Last year biometric notebooks presented one per cent of the notebook market," said Kramer, "this year we expect them to
represent five per cent."
Kramer said technological advances had now reduced the chances of a false rejection to "close to one in a thousand".
UPEK is a one year-old start-up spun off from STMicroelectronics after raising $20m to buy itself out. The firm had products, customers and revenues before it was founded. Last year it shipped one million units for revenues of $10m. "We expect $20m in 2005," said Kramer.
"If I could sell fingerprint recognition for $1 I'd have a huge number of customers," Alan Kramer, president of UPEK told EW.
The most inexpensive of UPEK's sensors costs $10. "We expect to get that down to $3-$5 eighteen months from now," said Kramer.
It uses a silicon sensor over which the user places a finger.
For higher value products such as laptops, the sensor used is much larger, and sells for $40-$50. This is used in the IBM Notepad and Kramer said IBM charges customers $50 for the fingerprint option.
Gateway, Micron PC, Fujitsu and Samsung also offer a fingerprint recognition option based on UPEK's product.
"Last year biometric notebooks presented one per cent of the notebook market," said Kramer, "this year we expect them to
Kramer said technological advances had now reduced the chances of a false rejection to "close to one in a thousand".
UPEK is a one year-old start-up spun off from STMicroelectronics after raising $20m to buy itself out. The firm had products, customers and revenues before it was founded. Last year it shipped one million units for revenues of $10m. "We expect $20m in 2005," said Kramer.
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