FPC Places Biometric Fingerprint Sensor in New PC Models

Fingerprint Cards (FPC) will be providing the fingerprint sensor for new PC models from one of the world’s top manufacturers. The company did not name its partner, but indicated that the new models will hit the market in the first quarter of 2021. Sales figures for the first year are expected to reach seven figures.

The news reflects the broader trend of fingerprint authentication on PCs, as well as FPC’s growing interest in that market. As it stands, international manufacturers are shipping 260 million PCs every year, and FPC believes that 170 million (approximately two-thirds) of those devices will feature a fingerprint sensor by 2026. FPC is hoping to capture 40 percent of that market, which would make it the world leader in the fingerprint PC space.

“This design win illustrates the strength of Fingerprints’ offering for the PC market,” said FPC Customer Engineering and Sales VP Haiyuan Bu. “We are poised for continued growth in this segment, providing the perfect way to add convenient and secure authentication to PCs, thus doing away with the hassle of using insecure passwords and PINs.”

While FPC is best known for providing fingerprint sensors for smartphones, the company has steadily worked to raise its profile in the PC arena in the past few months. In August, the company released a suite of new hardware and software solutions designed specifically for the PC market, which includes sensors that can be installed virtually anywhere on a device.

Of course, FPC’s fingerprint sensors had already appeared in several Chromebooks before the integration into the new PC line of products. The FPC1145 sensor appeared in Samsung’s Galaxy Chromebook and ASUS’ Flip C436 Chromebook in January, while the FPC1025 sensor turned up in the Chromebook x360 14c from HP in June. FPC did not specify which one of its sensors would be featured in the models that are coming in 2021.

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October 22, 2020 – by Eric Weiss