NEXT FAP30 Fingerprint Sensor Sees ‘Strong and Positive Feedback’ in Sampling

NEXT Biometrics has completed its first FAP30 fingerprint engineering samples, and is seeing a strong initial response. “Following several successful meetings with partners and an analysis of the current tenders on the market, NEXT… estimates the total addressable market to be larger than previously expected,” the company asserted in a statement.

In an email, CEO Ulf Ritsvall called it a “product milestone”. FAP30 sensors, which comply with the Fingerprint Acquisition Profile (FAP) 30 standard defined by the FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) system, offer potentially highly impactful applications in law enforcement, government, and other high-security areas.

They typically capture an image size of at least 20.32 mm x 25.4 mm (0.8 x 1.0 inches), with image resolution of 500 pixels per inch (PPI), ensuring high image quality for detailed fingerprint analysis.

NEXT emphasized that its FAP30 product leverages its Active Thermal technology, a patented fingerprint sensing method that relies on detecting the natural heat differences between the ridges and valleys of a finger. This approach enables the sensor to capture highly accurate and detailed fingerprint images, even under challenging conditions, making the system appropriate for a range of demanding security environments, from border control checkpoints to banking offices.

“One of the strongest features of the FAP30 is its outstanding picture quality and built-in anti-spoofing, which provides unmatched capability to detect liveness in the finger,” said NEXT’s Chief Product Officer, Marcus Lauren. “The larger size is naturally also an important feature that ensures a more complete picture of the fingerprint.”

Lauren also offered details about the strong initial response to NEXT’s offering, noting that the NEXT team was “quite taken by the strong and positive feedback” it received during the past nine months of meetings and demonstrations.

“Based on our initial analysis, we estimated the total addressable market for the FAP30 to be 1 million units,” Lauren explained. “However, right now we note outstanding tenders that are larger than our initial estimate of the total addressable market. It is still early in the process and hence we will not give any further guidance as of right now, but we believe our initial estimates ought to be updated.”

The development offers the latest sign of success with respect to a series of strategic shifts over the last few years, during which NEXT has sought to reduce operational costs while refining its focus on the development of high-end sensors. Over the past year in particular, NEXT has established important market inroads in China and India, and has shown significant improvements in business metrics like gross margin.

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December 20, 2024 – by Alex Perala