Capacitance keys security

InTech, Jan 2003

San Jose, Calif.-Having missed your opportunity to invest in the hula hoop and burned by the dot.com run-up and collapse, you might be on the make for a product that rocks and a stock that'll roll.

High technology research firm Frost & Sullivan is predicting that silicon-based fingerprint sensors will grow from their recent yearly revenue of $5.1 million at an exponential rate to an estimated $424.6 million in 2006.

The traditional dominance of optical sensors used in fingerprint biometrics will wane, said Frost, because technology is to the point that it's making the silicon-based option better, smaller, and less expensive.

A market player, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Veridicom, described the technology this way: When a finger contacts the sensor surface, the sensor measures the capacitance at each pixel in the 300 by 300 array in the sensor's surface.

Capacitance is an electrical property that exists whenever an insulating material separates two conductors, which permits electricity storage.

Differences in the capacitance values across the array correspond to the ridges,valleys,and pores that characterize a unique image of fingers.

The device extracts a reliable minutia template of less than 300 bytes from the image and verifies the scanned template against a previously enrolled template of that individual's fingerprint.

Edge distortion, low image resolution, scratched platens, misaligned optics, and bulky size are typical problems plaguing optical scanners.Veridicom's silicon-based fingerprint sensors are substantially less expensive, dramatically smaller, more robust, and easier to integrate than existing optical scanners, claims the company.

Applications include embedded fingerprint sensor in laptops and keyboards for secure PC log-on, disk encryption, and screen saver; PC peripherals (mouse, PC cards, and add-on peripherals); physical access; door access systems; consumer products; personalization; secure payout systems; point-of-sale terminals; replace passwords and PINs used in e-commerce with fingerprint authentication and digital signatures; secure mobile phones:secure log-on and secure access to mobile commerce applications; and time and attendance tracking.

Frost said the major market participants in the silicon chip fingerprint market besides Veridicom are Atmel, AuthenTec, Ethentica, Fingerprint Card, Fujitsu Microelectronics America, Infineon Technologies, ST Microelectronics, and Sony.