Recently, Apple adopted face recognition with 3D technology in the iPhone X. This is a significant threat to fingerprinting that has long been the exclusive creature of Nobunaga. In addition, the iris recognition is now also affected by Samsung, However, different from face recognition is currently using 3D technology in the market popularity, still iris recognition as a 2D technology, whether it can lead to other mobile phone brands outside of Samsung in the technical follow-up, or A great deal of unknowns. Therefore, its development is expected to see no significant milestone in the near future, making it difficult to identify with the 2018 showdown between fingerprints and face recognition.
Fingerprint identification veterans immortality into the screen will become a new trend
Apple in the iPhone X to cancel the fingerprint recognition, conversion to face recognition, which led many analysts to see the development of bad fingerprinting technology.However, the fingerprint identification module maker Kim Jong Technology pointed out that the current bank ATM has also been large The scale of fingerprint recognition technology, which is sufficient to prove the market for fingerprint recognition of high confidence, and next year fingerprint identification will be able to smoothly integrate directly with the monitor to form a screen identification program, it is bound to face recognition in the market to form long-term coexist.
Xiao Wenxiong, senior vice general manager of Jinjian Technology, said that in terms of smart phone applications, face recognition and fingerprint identification will both exist in 2018, and face recognition in the Android camp will have to be quite difficult at this stage to reach 3D , So will use 2D technology for face recognition, supplemented by the primary authentic identification to prevent the image fake.In view of this hybrid technology architecture, the current Jin 佶 has the corresponding solution.
Xiao Wenxiong further pointed out that in 2018, fingerprint identification will make great strides towards screen recognition, that is, the design framework for the direct integration with the display. Currently, most mobile phones are fingerprinting on the Home key (Figure 1) Under-screen recognition allows the original fingerprinting components that have to be exposed to be hidden under the screen, making it possible to increase the size of the mobile screen by eliminating the need for an additional area to install the sensor.
Most of the current fingerprint recognition is set below the screen of the mobile phone. Picture credit:
In addition, supply chain sources pointed out that the reason why Apple gave up fingerprint recognition in iPhone X is mainly due to the technical maturity of fingerprint recognition on the screen with the production schedule can not keep pace with the iPhone X production, so iPhone X can not keep the fingerprint identification Features For the iPhone X development team, implementing the totally different user experience across the full screen is the supreme guiding principle.
For this argument, Xiaowen Xiong frankly, the current optical fingerprint recognition maturity and capacity indeed can not meet the needs of smart phones to meet the level, but until 2018, the optical screen fingerprint recognition technology will be quite mature in the current Situation It seems that mass production has been confirmed in the second to third quarters of 2018. There will be no problem with mass production in 2018 therefore, fingerprint identification and face recognition will still have the chance to co-exist in the market in the future and no facial recognition will be eliminated.
In fact, fingerprinting business opportunities in the smart phone will not disappear, but must be converted to other technical principles, in order to allow mobile phone operators to design a "hidden" fingerprint recognition, leaving more space for the screen. In addition to optical technology , Chinese mobile phone brand Vivo also released a stealth fingerprint technology based on Qualcomm's ultrasonic fingerprint sensing in Shanghai MWC in the middle of this year. Qualcomm's latest ultrasonic fingerprint sensing technology can penetrate a cover glass with a thickness of 800μm or Is a 650μm thick aluminum plate that outperforms previous generation technologies that penetrate only 400μm of glass or metal, and according to Qualcomm's predictions, the terminal will be available in the first half of 2018.
Xiao Wenxiong analysis, the difference between ultrasonic and optical fingerprint identification solution is that the technical difficulty of ultrasound is indeed relatively high, because the direction of the ultrasound is poor, so the waves emitted are divergent, through a fixed sound speed To calculate the difference between the fingerprint peak and trough, and then use the sonic sensor to receive the principle of the optical scheme is similar to the camera through the CMOS image sensor to take the image, with each person's fingerprint unevenness, so the brightness of the image is not The same, then you can draw different fingerprints pictures.
Iris identification positioning unclear future development blocked
In contrast, iris recognition currently positioning in the smart phone market, it seems not very clear.For example, Qualcomm Multimedia Research and Development Engineering Vice President Zhang Jianzhong that the iris recognition is the use of iris eye area to identify, which is The 2D plane sensing is not as 3D recognition as the face recognition using three-dimensional parts such as the nose, eyes and mouth on a human face, so the possibility of using the 3D technology for iris recognition can not be seen at this stage.
At the technical level, fingerprinting, which is already available in most handsets, is now divided into two technologies. One is capacitive fingerprinting, which uses capacitive sensing to sense a complete fingerprint profile. The second is optical fingerprinting Identification, which is through the IR LED and CMOS image sensor to obtain 2D fingerprint image.For these two technology development process, Xiao Wenxiong analysis, the next cell phone screen identification will only be able to use optical or ultrasonic technology to achieve, so when Screen identification began to gradually be adopted by the market, the capacitor technology will inevitably form a great impact.
In iris identification part, it is done by IR LED technology, its use of IR LED and CMOS image sensor, 2D plane image comparison and identification.While the Apple iPhone X face recognition, is the use of less than 1nm light waves The VCSEL uses the time of flight (ToF) technology to calculate the frequency between the smart phone and various parts of the face by using 30,000 laser light sources to shoot and bounce time. Of the distance, and then according to the face of each point and the distance between the differences, to identify the face of the three-dimensional contour.
If these three identification techniques are compared in detail, you will find that iPhone X's face recognition due to the use of 3D technology, TrueDepth camera in addition to face recognition can be applied, but also brought a lot of innovative features for mobile phones, Such as portrait mode selfie, Animoji (Figure 2), etc. In this regard, Xiao Wenxiong believes that although TrueDepth camera face recognition achieved, but in fact, 3D technology is an important direction in order to develop AR / VR applications, not just to Facial recognition, so the mobile AR / VR application is bound to be very high in 2018 and the future development.
Figure 2 Animoji features a camera that captures a variety of facial muscles, allowing the cartoon characters built into the phone to mimic user emotions. Image credit: Apple
Although facial recognition can replace fingerprinting at the present stage is still unknown, but you can know that, even if the final face recognition because of a variety of cracking too rampant, and can not replace the fingerprint recognition, with TrueDepth camera 3D sense Measuring technology and VCSEL opportunities will not disappear, as the value of AR / VR applications will continue to solidify the need for TrueDepth cameras.
In contrast, the existence of iris recognition appears to be somewhat dangerous, although it is with non-3D fingerprint identification technology are used, but fingerprint recognition has been popular in the market for many years, in addition to mobile phones in recent years more widely used in airport clearance Systems, bank ATMs, door locks, safes, etc. Unfortunately, iris recognition is nowadays very few applications besides cell phones, and the light emitted by it will be directed at the user's eyes for a long period of time Rather than the user's entire face, as opposed to face recognition, and the ocular discomfort caused by this feature is currently a significant weakness of the technology.
Lock Chinese mobile phone demand Longhui strong play VCSEL 3D sensing program
However, after the iPhone X using 3D depth sensing technology, Android phone will be imported when the technology, people look forward to the hope.China's current VCSEL chip and module supplier vertical wisdom photoelectric is locked Huawei, Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo Such as mobile phone brand customers to contact, hoping to let their solutions into China's mobile phone brand supply chain.
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SEMI) recently held a seminar on 3D depth sensing and VCSEL technology at the Sheraton Hotel in Fortune Plaza Hsinchu, where a newly formed Chinese semiconductor company, Longhui Optoelectronics, was also involved. The company was established in December 2015 with headquarters An IC design house for outsourced foundry in Shanghai, with a focus on VCSEL chip and module technology development.
Chen Xiao Chi (Figure 3), general manager of Wisdom Optoelectronics, said the company is currently in close contact with the top five handset makers in China and future suppliers will also be based on Chinese branded handsets, while companies like Apple, Samsung, (Samsung) and other non-Chinese brand mobile phone factory, Chen Xiaochi said that there is no contact yet, hoping to first China's Android mobile phone market win.
Chen Xiao Chi, general manager of Longhui Optoelectronic Co., Ltd., said that the fastest handset with VCSEL components will be launched in the second quarter of 2018 by China's handset brand factory.
Chen Xiaochi expects that China's handset brand factory will launch the new handset equipped with VCSEL components as soon as the second quarter of 2018, and the application will also be the same as the iPhone X, used for face recognition and AR / VR functions.
Such expectations and Xiaowen Xiong expected Android camp, will use 2D technology for facial recognition in 2018, supplemented by the first authentic identification of hybrid programs have obvious differences.It is understood that although the VCSEL component is not available now However, taking into account the brand of mobile phone manufacturers, 3D sensing technology-related software, algorithms, resources and development progress are different, so both of these situations do occur, and the possibility of simultaneously Not small.
VCSEL components belong to one of the optical sensing technologies. At present, optical sensing ranges from 1 cm, 10 m, 100 m, and even to 1,000 m, so optical technology can be used as a sensing component Not only mobile phones, but also self-driving and unmanned aerial vehicles, etc. The main light sources for optical sensing (FIG. 4) include LED, Solid State, Edge Emitting Laser (EEL) Five types of single VCSEL, VCSEL Array.
Figure 4 Comparison of five characteristics of optical sensing technology data source: Long Hui photoelectric
Chen Xiaochi analysis, with the temperature changes, the general EEL light stability of 0.3nm / oC, while the VCSEL light stability was 0.07nm / oC, when the EEL light stability is insufficient, will cause the light source filter must be done Very wide, so that unnecessary light noise will easily enter the formation of interference.In contrast, the VCSEL (Shift) is smaller, it will be able to effectively control the light source filter (IR Filter), and further allow the component to measure Which makes the VCSEL components ideal for implementing 3D sensing technology in these optical sensing components.