Fingerprint Cards releases smartphone home button fingerprint sensor, purchases Anacatum Design

Fingerprint Cards announced that it has launched the world’s first touch fingerprint sensor specifically developed to be mounted as a home button on the front side of a Android smartphone or tablet.

Entitled the FPC1150, the sensor is rectangular in shape and less than half the size of the previously announced FPC1020.

In order to satisfy the size constraints of a home button-sized touch fingerprint sensor, new cutting-edge methods have been applied to enable the industry-leading performance provided by the FPC1150. To ensure fast time to market and leading performance, the FPC1150 reuses the industry-leading sensor design of its predecessors, the FPC1020, and the recently announced FPC1021, allowing for ultra-low power consumption, highly attractive and customizable industry design and strong resistance to wear and tear.

The touch fingerprint sensor capability combined with the small size of the FPC1150 offers excellent ease of use, enabling mobile device OEMs to use the FPC1150 as a home button for secure and convenient user verification. The FPC1150 supports both the Android and Windows operating systems.

Jörgen Lantto, Executive Vice President, CTO and Head of Strategy & Product Management at Fingerprint Cards, said in a statement: “The FPC1150 is FPC’s most significant product launch to date. Using the FPC1150, smartphone and tablet OEMs can now for the first time integrate a touch fingerprint sensor as a home button mounted on the front of the device without having to compromise the industrial design of the device, and yet deliver the ultimate experience in secure user authentication. This announcement is confirmation that FPC is delivering new highly competitive products at an accelerated pace, and our objective with the FPC1150 is to secure and strengthen our position as the global number one supplier of touch fingerprint sensors for smartphone and tablet OEMs.”

The rapid availability of the FPC1150 is the result of an accelerated pace of product development that was been made possible by cooperation with Anacatum Design AB.

Fingerprint Cards announced on May 19 that it purchased Anacatum Design AB. The acquisition price was not disclosed.

Anacatum Design is a Linkoping-based Swedish technology licensing and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) developing company.

Johan Carlström, Fingerprint Cards President and CEO, said: “This acquisition provides FPC with world-leading technology that will further strengthen our intellectual property portfolio. FPC also gains access to leading analog IP and ASIC development competencies and, by integrating Anacatum’s development team into FPC, we will further accelerate our development of the industry’s most ambitious portfolio of touch and swipe fingerprint sensors for the mobile devices industry. We are very much looking forward to welcoming the Anacatum team into FPC.”

Article Topics

acquisitions  |  Android  |  biometrics  |  Fingerprint Cards  |  fingerprint sensor  |  smartphone