Linxens to Provide Inlay and EMV Tech for IDEX Biometrics’ Card Solution

IDEX Biometrics has established an important new partnership in its effort to position itself as a leading provider of biometric smart card technology.

Its latest partner is Linxens, a specialist in smart card inlays, contact plates, and NFC antennas. Founded in France in the 1980s and acquired by Tsingua Unigroup in 2018, the company now has R&D centers in Europe and Asia, and decades of experience in smart card electronics.

The partnership will deliver a card solution for IDEX Biometrics customers that features IDEX’s TrustedBio biometric module, featuring a fingerprint sensor and microcontroller; as well as Linxens’ BioLAM card inlay and its EMV module. The latter component comprises a contact plate packaged with an SLC38 microcontroller from Infineon Technologies, which itself will feature IDEX’s Java Card operating system and applets.

“With seven manufacturing facilities around the world and a new biometric ‘center of excellence’ in its plant in Mantes-la-Jolie, France, Linxens brings strong commitment to facilitating the rapid growth of smart cards incorporating fingerprint authentication,” explained IDEX Biometrics CEO Vince Graziani. “This combined solution allows smart card manufacturers to substantially reduce design time, minimize manufacturing and supply chain challenges, and accelerate time to market, which all contribute to lower costs.”

The Linxens partnership builds on momentum that IDEX had already picked up this year in its biometric card efforts. Among other developments, the company has received reference design orders from Vietnam’s MKSmart and a Japan-based payment card integrator; and a Swedish challenger bank that had piloted its technology last year announced that it would be moving forward with a commercial launch of biometric payment cards.

For Linxens’ part, President and CEO Cuong H. Duong highlighted “the momentum IDEX Biometrics has established with its TrustedBio / SLC38 reference design,” and noted that its technology’s applications extend beyond payment cards.

“We anticipate our collaboration with IDEX Biometrics will be a strong contributor to our strategic initiative in fingerprint biometrics, which we believe is quickly becoming a key component of authentication and data security across card-based applications including payments, access control, healthcare, transportation, and a range of identification uses,” he said.

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June 20, 2022 – by Alex Perala