Oslo, Norway – Tore Etholm-Idsøe, CEO of NEXT Biometrics Group ASA, announces NEXT is showcasing the world’s first Smart Card compatible flexible fingerprint sensor. “We have previously announced that we will not comment further on our smart card developments until we have something material to prove,” Etholm-Idsøe stated. “We are now proud to announce that our ISO-compliance includes the recently published ISO/IEC 17839 standard, and to our knowledge this makes us the only supplier to meet this specification.”
The CEO added, “We have always believed that the Active Thermal principle, patented by NEXT, is optimally positioned to produce a flexible sensor, which has the required size to be secure and convenient for almost 100 per cent of the population.”
Etholm-Idsøe emphasized, “We are now in the process of setting up production lines capable of delivering tens of millions of sensors at an acceptable yield. This includes some risk and is targeted to be completed in the first half of 2017.”
He added that “The card industry is showing a strong interest in working with NEXT, and this market will be our main focus in the upcoming quarters.”
Etholm-Idsøe also announced that “NEXT Biometrics ASA has received the industry’s first biometric smart card volume order. The initial order has a value of 12 million Norwegian Krone (NOK) and shipments are scheduled to start in the third quarter of 2016. The first shipments will consist of rigid sensors.”
He said, “Volumes to our undisclosed customer are expected to increase to a total of 650,000 units in 2017.”
The CEO said, “The on-going development with our customer is aiming to ship a mass-produced, fully flexible and ISO-compliant biometric smartcard that will meet all requirements in this segment during 2017. This collaboration is aiming at introducing biometrics into ISO standard smart cards – a market that currently is estimated to grow to several hundreds of millions units per annum.”
NEXT CEO Tore Etholm-Idsøe said: “Our (undisclosed) customer has done an impressive job in bringing out this product, as the first of its kind, and it has a high profile end customer waiting to take contracted deliveries. We are very proud to say this is the world´s first mass production order for fingerprint sensors on smart cards.”
He added, “For NEXT this is an important milestone as it demonstrates our leading position within the smart card market. As far as we know, no other company has yet managed to meet all mandatory ISO standard requirements. NEXT and a growing number of key industry players now seem to agree that NEXT technology is uniquely positioned for success in the smart card space. Being able to meet both the ISO and the real life mass market minimum requirements of sensor size is recognized as key to success in the quality critical smart card applications.”
Etholm-Idsøe explained, “The Active Thermal Principle, patented by NEXT, is perfectly suited for producing a flexible sensor with the size required for the solution to be secure and convenient for close to 100 per cent of a population and at an affordable price.”
For more info, go to http://www.NextBiometrics.com