NEXT Biometrics pleased with its technical team’s progress in smart cards

Apr 25, 2018 | Stephen Mayhew

NEXT Biometrics revealed today that it has achieved an important first step in meeting the key requirements necessary for commercialization of the company’s fingerprint sensor technology for contactless smart cards.

According to a company statement, NEXT smart card modules successfully performed biometric functions powered only by an ISO/IEC 14443 contactless reader in testing performed earlier this month. ISO/IEC 14443 is an international standard that defines contactless smart card interface and transmission protocols. The test also showed NEXT’s large-area flexible sensors conducted these functions reliably and consistently.

Meeting the necessary low-power requirements for securely processing biometric data wirelessly is one of the key technical issues that must be successfully addressed to build systems based on contactless smart card technology.

“We’re extremely pleased with the progress our technical teams are making in smart cards,” said Ritu Favre, CEO of NEXT Biometrics. “Most observers agree that for security and convenience reasons, biometric contactless payment cards are the wave of the future in banking and other industries. While there is still much work to do, successfully performing biometric functions using our unique large-area fingerprint sensor technology operating on power harvested from a contactless reader, is a significant milestone and a great achievement.”

NEXT had previously announced it intends to begin customer sampling of contact‑based smart card modules using its fingerprint sensor technology sometime this quarter. The company is currently working with partners on contactless solutions and will be sampling them next year. The majority of existing customer projects are still contact-based and the contactless roll-out is consistent with the timing expected for adoption of contactless smart card technology in the industry.

CEO Ritu Favre recently announced some organizational changes that will enable the company to derive the benefits of its technology leadership and strategic focus. This heightened focus on operations and execution comes around the same time NEXT shipped its four millionth fingerprint sensor.