NEXT Biometrics, today announced 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. 

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

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 has 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.