Synaptics’ In-Display Fingerprint Tech Wins “Component of the Year” Industry Award

Synaptics‘ Clear ID fingerprint sensor solution has been named “Component of the Year” by the Society for Information Display, or SID. The recognition is one of the three categories of the 2018 Display Industry Awards, which also include the categories of “Display of the Year” and “Display Application of the Year”.

For industry watchers, Clear ID’s win will not come as a great surprise. It’s the first in-display fingerprint sensor to make it to the market, having launched in Vivo’s pioneering X20 Plus UD smartphone earlier this year. While fingerprint sensors are now more or less a standard feature of contemporary smartphones, front-facing integrations tend to be deployed within a button, which of course takes up space on a given device and can reduce real estate for the display.

With the mobile industry now moving toward full-size displays that cover the entire front face of a smartphone, Clear ID offers a unique solution that lets OEMs maintain fingerprint scanning without having to awkwardly position a sensor on the rear of a device or its side. And besides those practical considerations, it’s also an impressive technology, allowing OEMs to wow their end users with a system that not even Apple or Samsung has managed to successfully implement in their own premium devices.

In a statement announcing Synaptics’ award win, SID Display Industry Awards Committee Chairman Wei Chen explained that the DIAs “are SID’s highest honor, presented to recognize the best display products or applications introduced to the market during the previous calendar year.”

Synaptics’ Clear ID technology has already been used in a second smartphone from Vivo, and with this latest award win and other OEMs pursuing in-display systems for their own devices, the company could see heightened interest in Clear ID going forward.