According to the monthly offline fingerprint market report data of cinno research, the global offline fingerprint mobile phone shipment in 2019 was about 200 million, with a year-on-year increase of 614%. In addition to Samsung and apple, the off screen fingerprint of OLED mobile phones of other brands has become standard, with a penetration rate of more than 90%. It is estimated that by 2024, the overall off screen fingerprint mobile phone shipment will reach 1.18 billion units, with an average annual compound growth rate of CAGR of 42.5%.
At present, the practical off screen fingerprint technology mainly includes two directions: optical and ultrasonic. According to cinno research's monthly off screen fingerprint market report data, optical off screen fingerprint accounts for 75% of the overall shipment, which is the most mainstream technical scheme. This is mainly because the second generation optical scheme in 2019 uses a lens to replace the collimating layer, improves the image quality, fixes the whole module on the middle frame without fitting with the screen, and greatly reduces the module cost compared with the first generation scheme. The optical fingerprint of lens scheme promotes the rapid growth of fingerprint penetration under the whole OLED screen in 2019 with low cost.
The main manufacturers of optical screen fingerprint in the world include huiding, aegis and siliwei, and huiding occupies a leading market position. According to cinno research's monthly off screen fingerprint market report data, in 2019, huiding OLED off screen fingerprint scheme shipped about 110 million pieces, accounting for 75% of the off screen fingerprint market share and 57% of the overall off screen fingerprint market share, while aegis and siliwei accounted for 12% and 7% of the overall market share respectively.
Due to the large thickness of the fingerprint module under the second generation optical screen, it needs to be staggered with the battery during installation to reserve enough optical path space for the lens. Therefore, the installation position on the mobile phone is generally very low and occupies the battery position. With the advent of the 5g era, 5g chips have high power consumption, an increase in the number of antennas and strict requirements for fuselage space. Therefore, the demand for ultra-thin under screen fingerprint scheme gradually emerges. The third generation optical scheme launched by huiding at the end of 2019 adopts microlens, which greatly reduces the thickness of the module. By implanting micro lens instead of traditional large lens, the optical path space can be greatly compressed, so that the thickness of the module can be reduced to the level of 0.3 0.5mm, which can be stacked between the screen and the battery, which improves the design freedom and supports mobile phone manufacturers to put larger batteries. With the volume of 5g mobile phones in 2020, the ultra-thin under screen fingerprint scheme is expected to gradually improve the market penetration.
At present, only Qualcomm has the actual commercial capacity and monopolizes the market, mainly supplying Samsung. In 2019, Qualcomm's ultrasonic off screen fingerprint chip scheme shipped about 50 million pieces, accounting for about 25% of the global off screen fingerprint chip scheme market share.
Ultrasonic under screen fingerprint has some obvious advantages over optics in principle. Ultrasound can penetrate the epidermis and detect the fingerprint image of the dermis, so it can identify the living body. In theory, it is safer, and it is not easy to be disturbed by stains or strong light. Moreover, since the optical path design does not need to be considered, the thickness of the module can be very thin. But the disadvantages are also obvious. Ultrasonic wave cannot pass through vacuum, and it is difficult to pass through multi-layer solid / gas interface. Too thick glass will reduce the identification effect. Therefore, it must fit with the screen and only support the flexible OLED panel encapsulated by film. It also has high requirements for mobile phone film. At the same time, the cost of the sensing layer made of piezoelectric materials is also higher than the CMOS photosensitive element of optical fingerprint, so the overall cost is significantly higher than the fingerprint under the optical screen, which is only adopted on the flagship models of Samsung Galaxy S and note series.
In addition to technical principles, the maturity of the industrial chain is also crucial. There are many fingerprint manufacturers and customers under the optical screen, with relatively mature technology and perfect industrial chain. Although the fingerprint under the ultrasonic screen is more advanced in principle, it cannot compete with optics due to the perfection of the industrial chain. In practical application, there were security vulnerabilities due to software factors in 2019, forcing a large number of apps to temporarily close the fingerprint payment function of Samsung Galaxy S10, note10 and other models until Samsung software fixes the problem. Although this incident was finally resolved, it still dampened the enthusiasm of other manufacturers to adopt ultrasonic. However, this year, Samsung still adopts the ultrasonic scheme on the galaxy S20, indicating its attitude of jointly promoting ultrasonic off-screen fingerprint with Qualcomm.
If Apple plans to use off-screen fingerprints in the future, it is likely to use ultrasonic solutions based on Samsung's supply relationship, and Samsung may gradually penetrate ultrasonic fingerprints into the medium and high-end by relying on cost reduction. At the same time, siliwei, a subsidiary of Zhaoyi innovation, is also carrying out relevant development, and may launch its own competing ultrasonic solutions in the future.Cinno research estimates that with the accelerated popularization of OLED mobile phones, it is expected that the shipment of OLED off screen fingerprint mobile phones will increase to about 980 million by 2024, with an average annual compound growth rate of CAGR of 37%.
At the same time, although the LCD structure is more complex than OLED, the light transmittance is worse, and the development of off screen fingerprint is more difficult, because LCD still accounts for a considerable proportion of shipments in the medium and short term, actively promoting the development of off screen fingerprint has become another important way for optical off screen fingerprint manufacturers to achieve performance growth, and 2020 is expected to be the first year of mass production and listing of off screen fingerprint. According to cinno research, by 2024, the shipment of fingerprint mobile phones under LCD screen is expected to grow to about 190 million.
This article comes from cinno micro signal, which is reproduced and shared in this article.
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