FlexEnable and ISORG revealed the world’s first large area flexible fingerprint sensor on plastic designed for biometric applications. With an 8.6 cm x 8.6 cm active area, 84µm pitch (78µm pixel size with 6µm spacing) and 1024 x 1024 = 1048576 pixel resolution, this flexible sensor is only 0.3 mm thick and can operate in visible and near infra-red up to wavelengths of 900 nm. The technology is capable of measuring not only the fingerprint, but also the configuration of veins in the fingers, providing additional security versus that of a surface fingerprint alone.
 
This new sensor breakthrough has been achieved by deposition of organic printed photodetectors (OPD), pioneered by ISORG, onto a plastic organic thin-film transistor (OTFT) backplane, developed by FlexEnable, to create a flexible fingerprint sensor that is ultra-thin, light, robust and lensless.

The large label-thin sensing area can be applied to almost any surface – and even wrapped around the objects in our daily lives that we typically come into contact with – such as a car steering wheel that recognizes the driver as soon as the wheel is touched, or a credit card with integrated biometric detection that does not compromise current form factors. The addition of vein sensing on top of fingerprint sensing provides a second level of security, since each user’s vein pattern in the finger is unique and requires the user to be alive for detection to be successful.

Large area fingerprint sensors become prohibitively expensive for many applications when conventional silicon technology is used. In contrast, flexible plastic fingerprint sensors bring cost advantages to large area manufacturing due to the low temperature and printing process on plastic being employed.

“No other solution can offer large area sensing as well as finger print and recognition while being flexible, light and robust,” Jean-Yves Gomez, CEO of ISORG, said.