EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS FOR DIFFERENT APPLICATIONS

Fingerprints offers a strong product portfolio of biometric system solutions that help create easier and more secure everyday lives for the users. Simultaneously, solutions are being developed in new emerging markets for biometric solutions.

Fingerprints’ solutions are suitable for multiple product segments. Apart from smartphones, which is currently the largest application segment for the company’s products, Fingerprints’ solutions are also found in such applications as smartcards, door locks, vehicles and the IoT. The company’s products and solutions are protected by extensive patents. We always endeavor to obtain a balanced and growing patent portfolio extending from algorithms and biometric image processing to sensors and hardware packaging technology.

Mobile

Fingerprints is currently the market leader in capacitive fingerprint sensors for smartphones, a tried-and-tested technology in the mobile industry.

Capacitive sensors are the most common biometric modality by far in the mobile industry, largely because of their reliability, performance and cost efficiency. During 2021, the latest generation of ultrathin capacitive sensors designed for side mounting continued to increase its share of the market. Fingerprints is leading the development in this area and the growing share of new products in our mix contributed to the positive gross margin trend.

INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS

Capacitive fingerprint sensors

Fingerprints is a pioneer in capacitive fingerprint sensors, and was the first company in the world to integrate a touch fingerprint sensor into an Android phone in 2014.The market then expanded rapidly and Fingerprints succeeded in building a dominant position. Over the subsequent years, the competition intensified and the industry developed into a mature mass market. By continuously developing the product portfolio, Fingerprints has succeeded in maintaining a leading position with a market share of approximately one-third. This strong position is based on renowned high product quality, security and biometric performance.

In 2021, Fingerprints strengthened its leading position by continuing to introduce innovative new products to the market. We launched the FPC1552, the latest generation of ultrathin sensors with a curved shape, designed for side mounting. This product builds further upon our highly successful FPC1542 sensor, which was launched in 2020. These products meet customers’ demands for solutions that function well with the most recent smartphone models, such as foldable devices and mobiles with borderless fronts. At the end of the year, we made our first volume deliveries of the FPC1552 and the first smartphone featuring this new sensor was launched in February 2022: Redmi K50 from Xiaomi.

We will continue to focus on strengthening our leading position in capacitive sensors by ensuring that we have a comprehensive, competitive product portfolio for all relevant segments.

Under-Display

Under-display sensors, also referred to as in-display, are an alternative to capacitive sensors for integrating fingerprint sensors into a smartphone’s display. Fingerprints expects the capacitive sensor to continue to dominate the market, but simultaneously has an objective of also establishing a position in the market for under-display sensors.

Touchless

Since Apple launched iPhone X featuring facial recognition in 2017, interest in touchless technologies has increased, even though fingerprint recognition still dominates the market for Android devices. Fingerprints’ Touchless 2.0 platform combines the user-friendliness of facial recognition with the high security level of iris recognition. Touchless 2.0 offers a more secure and more cost-effective alternative to advanced facial recognition, not only for smartphones but also for a range of applications in various industries.

PC

In 2021, PC emerged as an important new product area for Fingerprints. We anticipate favorable growth in the short and long term, partly due to considerably more computers being sold now compared with the volumes that applied prior to the coronavirus pandemic, but primarily because the share of computers with fingerprint sensors is expected to grow considerably from today’s levels.

In early 2021, we received the first volume orders for our new biometric PC solution. Fingerprints already dominates the market for fingerprint sensors in Chromebooks, while three of the world’s five largest manufacturers of Windows PCs are already working to integrate our technology into their products. To date, we have been able to announce Windows PC launches with our sensors in products from Dell, HONOR, Huawei, Lenovo and Xiaomi.

INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS
To meet the rising demand for biometric solutions in the PC segment, Fingerprints launched a new biometric solution in 2020 that is specifically adapted to this application area. It can be used in many different types of PCs and peripherals. The product builds on our long experience of implementation of patented capacitive sensor technology for smartphones, and is optimized for integration into PCs. Our tried-and-tested capacitive sensors, combined with customized software and algorithms, deliver lightning-fast biometric matching within the framework of the highest security standards.

Our offering in the PC segment is continuously being developed, and is now offered in two different versions. In PCs intended for private use, the biometric authentication often occurs in the computer’s CPU, so-called Match on Host. In business computers, it is much more common to use so-called Match on Chip, which is even more secure since the biometric data is stored on a separate chip. Fingerprints’ solution is compatible with Microsoft Enhanced Sign-In Security.

Payments

Fingerprint sensors for payment devices, including payment and credit cards, wearables and USB devices, represent a considerable potential market and is an important growth area for Fingerprints.

In 2021, we continued to strengthen our world-leading position in this emerging mass market for biometric solutions. By year-end, we had noted six commercial launches of biometric payment cards in different parts of the world, all featuring Fingerprints’ technology. To continue driving development forward, we are focusing on scaling up our operations with the right business partners. We have well-established collaboration with several of the world’s leading players within payment cards. Together, we have the coverage, size and deep technological expertise to ensure that contactless biometric cards will become the next global mass market for biometrics.

INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS
Fingerprints’ technology – in the form of the fingerprint sensor module T-Shape – is being used in the world’s first biometric payment card, delivered by Thales, which has been certified by both Mastercard and Visa. These certifications have facilitated commercial launches on a larger scale. We continuously conduct development work aimed at further sharpening our offering in the payment area and, in January 2022, we announced that our latest generation of the T-Shape sensor module (T2) meets Mastercard’s updated security requirements for fingerprint sensors. This new product offers even better performance than its predecessor, while it is also world-leading in terms of cost efficiency.

During the year, we also made progress within the framework of our strategic partnerships with key players in payment card manufacturing. The world’s three largest suppliers of secure elements for payment cards – Infineon, NXP and STMicroelectronics – have all chosen Fingerprints’ technology for their reference designs. In September 2021, we announced that we, together with Infineon, have taken a very significant step forward by enabling execution of full biometric authentication in the secure element on a payment card, with retained performance and higher security. With this solution, there is no longer any need for a separate microcontroller unit (MCU). This milestone, which many in the industry have regarded as impossible to achieve, makes it less expensive and easier for card manufacturers to develop and roll out biometric payment cards on a large scale. At the beginning of 2022, STMicroelectronics received a CES 2022 Innovation Award for STPayBio, an advanced platform for biometric payment cards that was developed in collaboration with Fingerprint Cards and Linxens.

Access

By combining security, flexibility and user-friendliness, biometrics can facilitate secure access to a multitude of devices and data.

Biometric solutions for the Access area – biometric access control – is a fragmented but growing market that includes such products as access cards, door locks, cars, remote and gaming console controls, smart household appliances and authentication keys. Fingerprints is also the market leader in this segment and aims to defend this position when the market expands.

INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS

Fingerprints offers software and biometric sensors specifically customized for the Access segment, comprising both modules for fingerprint recognition and solutions based on iris recognition. Our portfolio of touch fingerprint sensors for Access includes the FPC1025, which is smaller than the other products in the series and is optimized for devices in which every millimeter counts. There is significant synergies with other product segments, not least payments. We have, for example, further developed our biometric software platform for payments, the FPC-BEP, so that it can now also be used in a variety of Access applications. Our T-Shape sensor module, developed for the payment area, can also be used favorably in access cards. During the year, Fingerprints received a volume order from Sentry Enterprises for several hundred thousand T-Shape sensor modules, for integration into SentryCard, a biometric card for physicaland logical access. This order illustrates the positive trend in progress in access cards, which gained additional momentum in 2021.

Iris recognition is also suitable for certain applications in the access area, such as touchless entry and exit control systems in public environments, something that has come into sharper focus since the outbreak of the coronavirus. During 2021, Fingerprints entered into an agreement with the Indian company Mantra Softech India Pvt Ltd, regarding a solution for iris recognition that will be integrated in a number of different devices in the next few years. The automotive industry is another area with considerable potential. We are continuing to invest in product and business development in this area, both in fingerprint sensors and iris recognition. We see a clear increase in interest from automotive companies in biometric authentication.