Synaptics announces Turnkey USB Fingerprint Solution

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Devices and OS
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Expands Natural ID Market to Include After-market Upgrades

Synaptics has announced a new ultra-small form factor USB module that enables Natural IDâ„¢ secure fingerprint authentication on any notebook PC.

Synaptics’ USB dongle is a turnkey solution for OEMs, ODMs and private labels, enabling them to offer their customers an easy to use and inexpensive fingerprint alternative for PCs lacking integrated biometric sensors.

The dongle is a fully housed, ready-to-use fingerprint module small enough to remain unobtrusively installed in any notebook USB port. Following a simple user enrollment procedure, secure authentication is completed with a single touch of a finger, enabling swift PC access and the full use of Windows Hello and Microsoft Passport.

Synaptics Natural ID solutions are FIDO Certified (Fast IDentity Online), providing broad compliance with an industry-wide ecosystem of products.

“The rapid growth of online payments combined with the critical need for protecting access to PC data for businesses and consumers alike is driving the need for high performance biometric authentication. Our new USB fingerprint reader expands our line-up of PC peripherals, enabling our customers to offer consumers myriad options for adding fingerprint sensing to existing notebook and desktop PCs,” said Godfrey Cheng, vice president of marketing, Human Interface Systems Division (HISD) Synaptics.

“This low cost turnkey solution can easily be bundled or sold separately.”

Synaptics USB Fingerprint
The Natural ID Family

Providing intelligent devices with the broadest array of fingerprint-authentication options, Synaptics Natural ID sensors are available in three lines, each with a distinct feature set.

  • Value — enabling cost-effective designs that feature Match-on-Host capabilities and FIDO certification for basic device security.
  • Feature Rich — delivering additional security and ease of use through encryption, touch activation, and support for a gloss/glass button.
  • High Security — adding the Match-in-Sensor architecture that brings optimal protection to high-end designs.

Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy commented,

“All things equal, fingerprint authentication is significantly more secure than typing passwords, and when combined with the convenience of not remembering and changing multiple passwords, it should end the debate. Notebook buying cycles are historically much longer when compared to smartphones, and Synaptics’ new USB-based fingerprint solution provides a cost effective and simple entry point to what I estimate to be 500 million Windows 10 systems via Windows Hello and Microsoft Passport by the end of 2016,”