IDEX releases a flexible touch fingerprint sensor for ISO cards

IDEX ASA announced that it has successfully completed development of a flexible polymer touch sensor with image quality and performance criteria specifically designed for smart card and ID card applications.

This touch sensor for ISO ID-1 form factor cards is in support of IDEX’s ongoing strategic partnership with a global payments company for the development of a worldwide biometric payment card program announced last June.

At the time, IDEX CEO Dr. Hemant Mardia commented, “We are very pleased to have been selected for this global company biometric card initiative enabled by our compelling low cost, turnkey fingerprint sensor solutions.”

The company says that the design and development of this flexible polymer touch sensor enables compatibility with standard, volume card manufacturing processes to be deployed as part of tier-one bank, smartcard and ID card ecosystems.

“For years the biometric security industry’s challenge has been to a create fingerprint touch sensor thin enough and flexible enough for the ISO ID-1 form factor, whilst also being durable enough to withstand the typical use-case for a payment or smart card,” says Mardia. “The IDEX Flexible Touch Fingerprint Sensor delivers this and produces the required image sensing quality and biometric performance using a low-resource secure algorithm.”

“The ability to seamlessly integrate a flexible, low-cost polymer touch sensor into an industry standard card thickness of only 0.76mm, and do so in a way that can be efficiently replicated in high production volumes, is a significant technical achievement for IDEX’s research and development team,” Mardia continues. “It also represents a major breakthrough for the ID card industry and payments protection in particular. IDEX is working with a top tier eco-system for producing and deploying this product in mass volumes. The IDEX Flexible Touch Fingerprint sensor for cards is now undergoing comprehensive programme of ‘real world’ function testing. We expect the IDEX sensor to be integrated into cards as part of a pilot and product qualification program with IDEX’s global payments partner within the coming months.”

IDEX expects initial volume shipments of its fingerprint sensors for cards to start in the second half of 2016.

IDEX will be demonstrating its full suite of fingerprint sensor technology at Mobile World Congress this week. the company will feature both customizable off-chip sensors and compact silicon based sensor products for mobile device and smart card applications.

Article Topics

biometric cards  |  biometric payments  |  biometrics  |  fingerprint authentication  |  Hemant Mardia  |  Idex Biometrics  |  research and development