Chronology of smartcard with a built-in fingerprint sensor
Chronologie des cartes à puce avec capteur d'empreinte digitale intégré
Here is the history of smartcard with a built-in fingerprint sensor.
Same information as the companies page, latest devices first.
Take care that I copied what they announce, and all of them are "first"...
- The Rise of Biometric Cards (2018 Q4) / Antonio D'Albore & JF Mainguet for the sensor section.
2022
SES RFID
- (2022) SESRFID.
- (2022 Aug) SES RFID shows off biometric smart card with sensor under PVC BIOMTX smartcard.
Samsung
- (2022 Jan) Samsung Introduces
Smart All-in-One Fingerprint Security IC for Biometric Payment Cards
The new security IC solution combines a fingerprint sensor, Secure Element and Secure Processor in one chip,
with enhanced security features enabled by Samsung’s proprietary fingerprint authentication algorithm and anti-spoofing technology.
(YouTube).
Optimized for the contactless era, 512k flash, 48k rom, 18.5k ram, ISO7816, ISO14443A, 3DES/AES/RSA/ECC Samsung biometric card / S3B512C
It's a surprise that the S3B512C was a integrated one chip solution, because it is costly to use an expensive CMOS process with security features to make a large area fingerprint sensor (no info about size and resolution). See System on chip.
2021
ST
- (2021) STPay-Topaz-Bio is a smart card with a 6-contact FPC1323 sensor module on 35 mm tape via Linxens.
2020
As a matter of facts, nothing really new is happening, there is no new fingerprint sensor integrated inside a smart card. Only old prototypes/products with different printing designs.
2019
APS
- (2019 Jul) APS unveils the Stone M with a fingerprint sensor.
ExcelSecu, Hengbao
- (2019 Mar) ExcelSecu batteryless, dual interface display, Idex sensor.
- (2019 May) Hengbao dual-interface card demonstrated at the 2nd Digital China Summit (source Idex)
Feitian
- (2019 Mar) Working with Idex and Fingerprint Cards.
2018
Gemalto
- (2018 Nov): MasterCard Set to Conduct 16 Week Trial of Biometric Bank Card in Italy.
Sensor has changed: it's now a FPC1300 series. - Intesa Sanpaolo, Mastercard and Gemalto announces pilot of dual interface Biometric Payment Card in Italy
Idex
Next Biometrics
- (2018 Nov) Infineon and NEXT Biometrics introduce Biometric Card Reference Design
NXP
- (2018 Sep) NXP launches low-cost fingerprint card solution.
- With Precise Biometrics (2018 Jun)
& Fingerprint Cards (2017 Oct)
Toshiba
- (2018 Jun) Toshiba review
Morix FPSF105AU Area Sensor, 8 x 8mm, 160 x 160 pixels.
Lion
- (2018 Aug) Demo on YouTube
Next Biometrics
- (2018 Jul) Another prototype "powered by Tactilis"
Sisoul
- (2018 Jun) Sisoul No PW FPC Card (batteryless NFC smart card).
Infinacom
- (2018 May) Infinacom Biometric Credit Card announcement.
Unikeys
- (2018 May) Unikeys: the UKey smart hardware wallet card is ISO/IEC 7810 & 14443 compliant. (Mereal card)
- (2018 Jun) Steffan J. on twitter publishes some statistics.
SCTECHONE
- (2018 May) SCTECHONE Touch xWallet with the FPC1300-series sensor (not ISO / thickness).
MeReal
- (2018 Mar) MeReal
Biometrics explains the Benefits of a Fingerprint Sensor on a card.
Looks to be a new version.
China Vision
- (2018 Feb) China Vision Microelectronics (深圳华视微电子有限公司) announces a smart card with a fingerprint sensor.
Mountain America
- (2018 Jan) Mountain America
Credit Union Becomes the First Financial Institution in USA to Trial Biometric Payment Cards
Kona-i smart card
2017
Hantro Tech
- Hantro Tech: Hantro Tech BioNCrypt smart card /Buykorea
- (2017 Nov): BH001
160x160 pixels @508dpi, 8 bits
HYF
- HYF Herofun or Shenzhen Herofun Bio-Tech co., : Herofun-bio / Herofun-id
- (2017 Oct): BH001
8*8 mm @508dpi, 8 bits, Pencil hardness: 6 H(@500g), RCA Abrasion Wear: 200 cycle(@175g), FRR: 2%, FAR: 1/10000 and also : Interface: USB/GPIO / Interface type: 13pin, 0.8mm pitch, ACF connector Supply voltage: 3.0-3.6 V, which is really strange for a smart card...
BH001A: build-in rechargeable battery, contact and contactless
BH001B: no battery, only contactless. (source: Lucia Lee)
ManeulLab
- (2017 Nov): ManeulLab unveils a fingerprint enabled smart card (The Card). Fingerprint Cards sensor under the transparent overlay.
Feitian
- (2017 Aug) Feitian unveils
a smart card with an Idex fingerprint sensor.
BTW, I just remembered Feitian was using the FingerChip in 2006.
Morix
- (2017 Nov) Morix fingerprint CARD is using the FPSF 105 AU (IMD).
Idemia
First Biometrics
- (2017 Aug) NEXT Biometrics large fingerprint sensor chosen by
First Biometrics for smart card.
No button? No battery? No LED?
Smartmetric
- (2017 Jul) SmartMetric Releases Video of Its Biometric Fingerprint Secured Credit Card (IMD sensor).
UINT & Mereal Biometrics / Fingerprint Cards
- (2017 Jun) New Secure Biometrics Card V2 Unveiled in the World's First Open Air Casino.
- (2017 Jun) Fingerprint Cards FPC1320.
Zwipe
- (2017 Jun) polyimide PCB.
Kona-I / Crucialtec
- (2017 Jun): energy harvest / self-powering.
Idex
- (2017 Jun) IDEX launches breakthrough fingerprint sensor for contactless smart cards.
Idex
- (2017 May): Gemalto EMV card. Remember that Gemalto acquired Cogent.
Idex
- (2017 Apr): Thumbs Up: Mastercard Unveils Next Generation Biometric Card. South African Trials Demonstrate Convenience and Security.
- (2017 May): Safran Identity & Security (now OT-Morpho) reveals role in Mastercard biometric card
KSID Korean Smart ID
- (2017 Apr) Taiwan-based Elan Microelectronics has announced it is teaming up with smart card integrator Jinco Universal and Korea Smart ID (KSID), a security solution provider, to develop smart cards with an embedded fingerprint sensor.
- (2017 Jul) MagnaChip Semiconductor has been selected to manufacture ELAN Microelectronics’ fingerprint sensor IC-based smartcard. The sensor-IC based smartcard will be manufactured using MagnaChip’s 0.35 micron mixed signal thick in-mold decorating (IMD) manufacturing process technology.
Bundesdruckerei
- (2017 Mar): CeBIT: Bundesdruckerei GoID
Fingerprint Cards
- (2017 Mar) Fingerprint Cards:
Fingerprints™ premieres first own contactless card solution demonstration:
- Smartcard with contact chip
- contactless without battery
- contactless with battery
Lion
Oberthur Technologies
- (2017 Feb) Oberthur Technologies demonstrates the F-Code card at the MWC.
Idex
- (2017 Feb): A smartcard with Safran at the MWC
ASD / Morix
- (2017) Morix Card NFC
Jinco Japan
- (2017) Jinco smart card (Taiwan) alliance with KSID & Elan
2016
Zwipe
- (2016 Nov) green PCB.
Kona-I / Crucialtec
- (2016 Oct): Kona-I releases a fingerprint enabled credit card.
- (2016 Nov): Fingerprint Cards unveiled that Kona has a FPC1300 series sensor.
Datang Microelectronics Technology (DMT)
- (2016 Jun) Datang exhibition.
Showed the 2nd generation ID card. (looks like B-iD!)
Qafis / Access Verification Solutions
- (2016 May) Qafis and Access Verification Solutions are offering a "biometric smartcard". Looks to be just an image, hard to believe the Upek sensor is still available...
Kona-I / Crucialtec
- (2016 May): CrucialTec
releases a smart card with Kona.
Fingerprint Cards FPC1020 sensor. - Short video showing the smart card in action.
UINT & Mereal Biometrics / Fingerprint Cards
- (2016 May) UINT swipe version Short video showing the smart card in action.
KSID Korean Smart ID
- (2016 Apr) KSID unveils its
Bio Smart Card.
Fingerprint sensor: 160x160 pixels / 12.2x12.2 mm
Next Biometrics
- (2016 Apr) NEXT Biometrics Showcases Flexible Fingerprint Sensor for Smart Cards. "We are now proud to announce that our ISO-compliance includes the recently published ISO/IEC 17839 standard, and to our knowledge this makes us the only supplier to meet this specification."
Zwipe
Idex
- (2016 Feb): IDEX Unveils World’s First Flexible Touch Fingerprint Sensor for ISO Cards
- (2015 Jun) IDEX Enters into a Strategic Worldwide Biometric Card Partnership with a Global Payments Company. Guess who?
IFE Infinity Electronic Biotech
- (2016): IFE338 RFID/NFC, built-in battery (7V / 17mAh) or energy harvesting from contactless reader, CPU @ 80MIPS, 128K flash memory and 64K RAM built-in.
2015
Jinco Japan
- (2015 Nov) NFC smart card
Smartmetric
- (2015 Jul) A new version with the Upek swipe sensor.
Bundesdruckerei
- (2015 Mar): CeBIT: Bundesdruckerei exhibits an employee ID card for tomorrow: Go ID!
FSTechnologys
- (2015 Mar): FST Fstechnologys unveils the Bio Smart Card *EPNC)
Quardlock
- (2015): Quardlock proposes a OTP smartcard.
"Available 2015" as said on their website. Still waiting. - (2015 Sep) Video on YouTube
Creative Arts
- (2015): Creative Arts is developping a smart card, RFID, with a small fingeprint sensor FPTS22 ?
2014
B-iD
- (2014 Nov): B-iD proposes a biometric smart card @ ISC West 2014.
Fingerprint sensor: FPTS22?
CardTech
- (2014 Nov): CardTech demonstrates at cartes 2014 a smart card with
an Idex fingerprint sensor. Demonstration video.
Likely a follow-up of the Pinkey card in 2011.
Zwipe & Mastercard
- (2014 Oct): Zwipe & Mastercard
announce the launch of the world’s very first contactless payment card with embedded fingerprint biometrics,
combining on-device biometric authentication with the convenience of a contactless credit card.
Fingerprint Cards sensor.
Smartmetric
- (2014 Jan) SmartMetric to Launch World’s First Bitcoin Card With Biometric Fingerprint Protection.
Unidentified fingerprint sensor, likely only an image.
JP Sensor >> (2016) IFE
- (2014): JP Sensor unveils a smart card project, the JP2000 BioCard.
2013
UINT & Mereal Biometrics / Fingerprint Cards
- (2013 Sep): UINT & Mereal Biometrics announces a new smartcard with a built-in fingerprint sensor from Fingerprint Cards. (press release). (FPC press release).
- (2014 Oct) Short video showing the smart card in action.
Sonavation
- (2013 May): Sonavation
unveils an ISO 7816 smart card.
Looking at the pictures, it seeems that an area sensor exists... and very close design from the Embedx Biomatrix card!
2012
Embedx Biomatrix
- (2012 Apr): Idex announces an order from Embedx Biomatrix for fingerprint sensors to embed in a smartcard.
MondoKey
- (2012): MondoKey is defining the MondoKey smart card.
Jinco Japan
- (2012): Jinco Japan unveils the Jinco smart card at Cartes Hong-Kong '12.
2011
Pinkey
- (2011 Nov): Pinkey unveils the
Pinkey Smart smart card.
Embeds an Idex capacitive sensor.
See also Card Tech. Also Sonavation partner.
Smartmetric
- (2011 Jun) Smartmetric releases the world's first fingerprint-activated portable Health Records card for consumers.
SmartDATATEL
- (2011): SmartDATATEL is developing with Smartmetric a smart card, with a swipe fingeprint sensor.
SIC Biometrics
- (2011): SIC annouces the Touch Prox smart card.
The Touch Prox card developed by S.I.C. Biometrics offers a new concept in biometric identification and global security.
The card is equipped with a built-in solar panel into the back of the card to recharge the internal battery. Over 1,000 uses are possible by full battery charge.
2010
Validus
- (2010) Validus BC-25 (with Idex)
ASD / Morix
- (2010): ASD unveils the
Auth.On Card smart card.
Embeds their FPTS-22 fingerprint capacitive sensor.
Also announced by AVANT Biometrics [www.avantbiometrics.com].
ASD / Morix
- Seen at Morix
2009
Validus
- (2009 Jan) Validus VALIDcard.
Cardlab
- (2009) production of CardLab first biometric card (FPC1080A).
E-Smart technologies
- (2009) Note that the sensor is rotated. Source : We change the world, with much more photos.
2008
E-Smart technologies
- (2008 Oct) The contactless "I AM" card is demonstrated at Cartes 2008. Unclear sensor, likely Fujitsu, but seems to be also a version with the pressure sensor from BMF as announced in the Nikkei Electronic Magazine.
- Super Smart Card manufacturing video

E-Smart technologies
- (2008 Jan) e-Smart® Technologies, Inc., announces Next Generation Superthin Polyimide Flexible Circuit Biometric Super Smart Card™ card, the “i am”™ Card.
Validus
- (2008) Validus [www.validustech.com] VALIDcard pre-production card.
2007
IDSmart / Fujitsu
- (2007 Mar) ID Smart Inc. [www.id-smart.com], a Las Vegas-based
biometric security system manufacturer and provider, announced today that it has successfully designed
a new smart card using state-of-the-art semiconductors from Fujitsu.
ID Smart will use the Fujitsu MBF200 Fingerprint Touch Sensor providing 500 dpi AFIS compliant sensor with MB91460 series, 32-bit FR processor, high-performance RISC core that targets 100MIPS applications and beyond, in conjunction with ID Smart's own proprietary fingerprint-matching algorithm. The FR processors have an exceptional processing speed with a large internal memory capacity of 1MB (flash) and 64KB (SRAM), including 8KB of instruction cache.
Fidelica
- (2007 Feb) Announces the availability of the BCP-3 smart card development platform featuring a fully-embedded biometric system. Used by DivaCard [www.divacard.com].
Jacob Palmborg
- (2007 Jun): Designer Jacob Palmborg [www.jacobpalmborg.com] unveils the Credit Card Concept. The fingerprint sensor is a fake.
Vaultid
- (2007 Jul): Vaultid is making research about a smart card with a fingerprint sensor. The picture to the right is an artistic rendering of what the Vaultid Card could look like.
2006
Cardlab
- (2006) first and second biometric card proof of concept (no image / likely the one from ScanEcotech)
Smartmetric
- (2006 May) Smartmetric shows a smart card with an embedded fingerprint sensor from ???

Fidelica
- (2006 Jun) Fidelica [www.fidelica.com] shows a smart card with a Fidelica fingerprint pressure sensor.
2005
NovaCard, FingerCard / Upek
- (2005) Novacard with a Upek swipe sensor (Louis Molholm / Card Factory)

Scanecotech / Fingerprint Cards
- (2005 Apr) Scandinavian Ecotechnologies [www.scanecotech.com] presents a biometric card with an embedded swipe sensor likely from Fingerprint Cards.

E-Smart technologies
- (2005 Mar) still at project state, no real device available?

2004
Giesecke & Devrient / Fingerprint Cards
- (2004?) MoSTAR Biocard with an embedded swipe sensor from Fingerprint Cards.

NovaCard, FingerCard
Likely to be the same project :
- (2004) Zorg HSB smart card
- (2004) Fasme (Facilitating Administrative Services for Mobile Europeans)


Quard Card / Upek
- (2004) Quard (www.quard.dk) shows the QuardCard. Upek sensor, then likely Fingerprint Cards.
- Brochure
E-Smart technologies
- (2004) BioSensor [www.biosensorhawaii.com] Fingerprint sensor FPS

2003
E-Smart technologies
- (2003) Super Smart Card [www.e-smarttechnologies.com]
2002
Biometric Associates, Inc. (BAI)
- (2002) Henny van der Velden is able to present his brain child to the world: the first Credit - or ID - card with an integrated 3-D fingerprint sensor.
- (2002) Biometric Associates
- Super Smart Card with E-Smart technologies


NovaCard, FingerCard
- (2002) Novacard with Biometric Associates.
NovaCard, FingerCard / Infineon
- (2002) Fingercard with Novacard (Same as Siemens?).
Giesecke & Devrient / Infineon
- (2002) Prototype with an Infineon sensor.

2001
Nothing to note
2000
ID Technologies
- (2000 Mar) Proof of concept of a full recognition done within a smart card shape size made by Bill Lane.
1999
Siemens/Infineon FingerTip
- (1999) Another prototype shown at the Cebit (see also Bromba webpage)


Thomson-CSF (Atmel) FingerChip
- (1999 Jul) Proof of concept of a smart card with a swipe sensor, the FingerChip.
- Application note
1998
Siemens/Infineon FingerTip
- (1998) Siemens shows a card with the FingerTip