Fingerprint Technology – Bigger is Better

In his article ‘Emerging Fingerprint Technologies for Smartphones’ (see IDN January 2023), technology consultant Dr Alan Hodgson predicted that in response to the need for better fingerprint recognition on devices, technology suppliers would be looking to increase the size of their biometric sensors. And he was right!

UK-headquartered startup Touch Biometrix, a leader in biometric fingerprint sensor technology, has successfully developed the world’s largest TFT (thin-film transistor) based capacitive fingerprint sensor, using their novel Active Pixel architecture.

The TCAP60 is fabricated by Sharp Display Technology Corporation, a Sharp group company. The sensor measures 3.2 by 3 inches, and therefore meets the criteria for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) FAP60 standard ¹.

FAP 50 and 60 scanners can be used to capture four flat fingers and rolled fingers simultaneously. The high resolution sensor of the TCAP60 has 500 pixels-per-inch and captures the fingerprint patterns using a proprietary Touch Biometrix chip design – ROIC (readout IC) – ready to be shared with the application host system.

‘Touch Biometrix decided to develop TCAP60, in FAP60 size and resolution as its first product, even if it is with the most challenging dimension within the FBI-certified list, because we knew our technology had the full scalability to any size and we wanted to prove to the world Touch Biometrix’s technology is the one to adopt,’ said the company’s Chief Technology Officer Eric Derckx.

Aside from its size, the company says that the TCAP60 fingerprint sensor’s main selling point is its scalability to any shape. It can be flexible and rigid while maintaining high sensitivity and low energy consumption. The TCAP60 device is available as a half module ready for integration into security services applications.

In his article, Alan described why bigger sensor size can result in better testing results. ‘As a larger sensor gives a larger sample, it therefore provides higher security from two perspectives. First, when the fingerprint is first taken on the device there is more data to inform authentication without multiple capture to populate the dataset. Second, during authentication the larger sensor captures more data to inform the process.’ 

FAP60 (© Touch Biometrix).

 

This description goes a long way to explain why the biometric sensors industry is getting so excited about the prospect of larger sensor areas and datasets.

Sharp Devices Europe’s Sales GM Jens Hoeper commented: ‘there is a huge opportunity out there in fingerprint biometrics and Sharp strongly believes in Touch Biometrix’s technology. I believe Sharp can play a pivotal role in bringing this technology to market, by leveraging from Sharp’s G4.5 TFT facility, its resources and the long experience in manufacturing’.

1 - www.cardlogix.com/glossary/fingerprint-acquisition-profile-fap-10-20-30-40-45-50-60/