Samsung reportedly facing supply issues for Galaxy S5 fingerprint sensor

Slightly over a week since Samsung's announcement of its flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone, reports regarding production issues for the handset's fingerprint sensor have started circulating.

The Korean smartphone maker is said to be in a somewhat embarrassing situation, as it is running low on sensor yields for the Samsung Galaxy S5. Samsung was previously said to hand-over the production of the Galaxy S5's fingerprint sensor to a third-party firm, but apparently took the decision to create it in-house.

Samsung is reportedly now looking to team-up with a third-party firm to create enough fingerprint sensors for the freshly unveiled Samsung Galaxy S5, due to launch globally on 11 April 2014. It has been further reported that Samsung is in talks with a firm named Crucialtec, an optical track pad and fingerprint manufacturer for mobile devices, as per a Korean website (via Sammobile). The Korean manufacturer supposedly plans to work closely with Crucialtec in order to meet its launch deadline.

The Samsung Galaxy S5's fingerprint sensor was introduced by the company in obvious recognition of Apple's successful implementation of the idea on the iPhone 5s handset, however both sensors work differently. While iPhone 5s users just need to keep their fingers over the home button for unlocking the device, Galaxy S5 users need to swipe downwards on the home button.

The Samsung Galaxy S5 was launched on 25 February 2014 with some bumped up specs over its predecessor. Some of the key specifications of the Galaxy S5 are its 5-inch full-HD screen, 16-megapixel rear camera, 2.5GHz quad-core processor paired with 2GB of RAM, along with Android 4.4.2 KitKat OS and a 2800mAh battery.

Update: Samsung has responded to the speculation it is using a third-party vendor to alleviate fingerprint sensor production issues, saying, "CrucialTec does not supply fingerprint scanner to Samsung Electronics." The statement unfortunately doesn't rule out Samsung may actually be facing yield issues, or using another third-party vendor.