The Melbourne-based company, which employs about 55 people, has been growing rapidly since its founding in 1998 as a spinoff from defense contractor Harris Corp., which is also based in Melbourne.

AuthenTec makes semiconductor-based chips that use a person's fingerprint to be able to use cellular phones, personal digital assistants, computers, homes and cars. Experts say the overall industry is expected to grow significantly in the next four years.

Working on such products for AuthenTec is Orlando resident Garrett Clark. The company hired the 37-year-old two weeks ago as a senior software engineer.

He was intrigued about AuthenTec after talking to a friend at the company who "had nothing but good things to say about it. I had heard enough about AuthenTec, I wanted to try them out."

Clark said being at an up-and-coming technology company is "very dynamic. Things happen very fast here, and that's the kind of environment I am happier in. The work I am doing now could find its way into hundreds of thousands of cell phones. That idea boggles me."

Taking a chance after switching from Dictaphone, which has two operations in Melbourne, Clark said he "wouldn't have made the switch if I didn't think AuthenTec had a future. I had a good feeling about the company, and, so far, it has been living up to that."

Revenues for biometrics -- using a person's unique features, like fingerprints, eyes or face, to restrict access -- are forecast to nearly quadruple, from $1.2 billion in 2004 to $4.6 billion in 2008, according to the New York-based International Biometric Group.

Capitalizing on that growth, AuthenTec announced earlier this month that the company shipped its 3 millionth chip, which the company said is the most any company in the industry has shipped.

In an attempt to gain more market share, the private company is hiring for positions in software product marketing and development, product and biometric testing, analog and mixed-signal design, new-business development and channel marketing.

AuthenTec's growth in the biometrics industry and recent announcement of adding additional high-tech, high wage jobs is "what sets AuthenTec apart from their competitors, and is what has helped them reach their aggressive goals," said Lynda Weatherman, president and chief executive of the Economic Development Commission of Florida's Space Coast.

"We salute their decision to continue their business expansion in Brevard," she said.

There are three trends fueling the explosive growth in biometrics -- and fanning the revenues of companies in that space, said Amanda Goltz, a consultant with New York-based International Biometric Group.

The driving factor is that there is a "growing public acceptance of biometric technologies," she said, adding that banks and even supermarkets are using people's fingerprints to pay bills and access account information.

Further, other countries -- including those in the European Union -- are developing programs that use fingerprint and facial-recognition technology together to verify identities, she said.

Boosting biometrics overall is that many companies have matured to be "enormously developed and reliable, including AuthenTec," Goltz said. "They have more capital for research and development, so fingerprint technology is getting better doing what it does."

To sell that technology and develop new products, you need more employees, said AuthenTec President and Chief Executive Scott Moody. Firming up the company's financials, AuthenTec in July secured $15 million in venture-capital funding.

"We have tended to be conservative in hiring," he said. "But, given the amount of opportunity we see and the recent funding, we are in position to ramp up hiring. We will continue to focus on smaller, better, faster products that use even less power."

Some of the strongest markets right now are AuthenTec fingerprint chips in cellular phones and computers -- with a new feature allowing the sensor to also act as a mouse, Moody said, making a good use of space and power.