Bundesdruckerei and Samsung Announce Partnership

Bundesdruckerei has entered into a development agreement with Korean display manufacturers Samsung Mobile Display. Both partners are hopeful that this cooperation will produce quantum leaps forward in technology, focussing on the joint development of innovative display technologies for the next generation of ID cards and passports. One idea is to integrate short videos into ID documents in future. Development cooperation will centre around active matrix displays with organic LEDs (AMOLED).

Samsung Mobile Display (SMD) in Seoul is a global market and technology leader in display technologies with organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), while Bundesdruckerei in Berlin is one of the world’s leading suppliers of identity protection systems. This development agreement will strengthen the existing cooperation between the two partners. Together, they will develop innovative systems for electronic passports, ID cards, driving licences and other ID documents. The agreement will run for a period of 12 months initially.

“We are confident that this development agreement will give us access to the very latest display technologies, enabling us to trial innovative solutions based on state-of-the-art systems and materials, leading to the imminent launch of new concepts and documents”, announced Ulrich Hamann, CEO of Bundesdruckerei, on signing the agreement.

Development work will focus primarily on technologies to integrate AMOLEDs into a wide variety of materials. The aim is to develop full-colour documents which are very slim, small, bendable and robust, despite the high-tech features inside. It is hoped that these documents will offer new identity protection opportunities and an unprecedented level of counterfeit protection. Under the cooperation agreement, SMD will be contributing its display technologies and supplying super-thin versions of AMOLEDs, while Bundesdruckerei has developed a contactless technology and will be contributing its expertise as a developer of electronic ID documents.

The first product of this cooperation has already been unveiled: The world?s first ever ePassport concept with thin, bendable AMOLED displays. Located behind every pixel in the display is an active electronic circuit which consumes only minimal power. Future generations of ID documents will operate contactlessly and without internal batteries, being activated solely via the power from a reader unit. The materials used for the card are heat-resistant, allowing the passport card to be laminated for extra protection against manipulation. Even with the integrated colour display, the data page of this sample electronic passport is only 700 µm thick. In future, officials will be able to retrieve all kinds of information via the display, such as a moving image of the document holder. In future, today’s “fixed” two-dimensional photographs of document holders could be replaced with videos of them moving their heads from right to left. This three-dimensional image will make it easier for border officials, for example, to ascertain whether the traveller in front of them is in fact the passport holder. This enables faster and easier border crossing processes.

Bundesdruckerei is working intensively to advance the development and use of identity technology as one of the key technologies of the future, and has established numerous cooperation arrangements with partners. Among other things, Bundesdruckerei co-initiated the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft innovation cluster “Secure Identity Berlin-Brandenburg”, and has also funded a chair in “Secure ID” at Berlin Free University, and set up a chain of security laboratories with Fraunhofer Institutes. The company is helping to promote and develop the Berlin region as a world centre for secure identity systems.