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TAINAN, Taiwan and TAICHUNG, Taiwan, Aug. 18, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Himax Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: HIMX) (“Himax” or the “Company”), a leading supplier and fabless manufacturer of display drivers and other semiconductor products, and WAFERLOCK Corporation (TPEx: 6474) (“WAFERLOCK”), a Taiwan-based provider of smart lock and access control solutions, today jointly announced that Himax’s WiseEye palm vein biometric authentication technology has been integrated into the WAFERLOCK L322 palm vein smart lock. The L322 is now commercially available. Together, the two companies are bringing contactless, highly secure palm vein authentication to smart lock applications, delivering a new generation of access control solutions that combine security, convenience, and privacy protection for homes, residential communities, and smart buildings.

The WAFERLOCK L322 smart lock integrates palm vein authentication with multiple access methods, supporting palm vein recognition, RFID cards, PIN codes, mechanical keys, and an optional mobile app. It is also compatible with EasyCard, iPASS, and MIFARE contactless cards, supporting a wide range of residential scenarios. Users simply hold their palm in front of the lock for fast, contactless authentication, providing an intuitive and convenient way to unlock the door. The L322 is particularly convenient in everyday situations, such as when users are carrying groceries, have wet hands, are unable to use fingerprint authentication, or need to help elderly family members or children enter the home.

Compared to conventional fingerprint authentication, palm vein authentication verifies identity by reading the unique vein patterns beneath the skin of the palm. By relying on internal biometric features, it is far less affected by perspiration, skin conditions, worn fingerprints, or age-related changes, and significantly reduces the risk of identity spoofing or credential theft. Palm vein patterns are highly unique and stable, even identical twins have distinct vein patterns. Combined with liveness detection, palm vein authentication further enhances the security, accuracy, and reliability of identity verification.

Himax’s WiseEye palm vein biometric authentication solution is built on endpoint AI and integrates an ultralow power AI processor, an image sensor, and advanced palm vein recognition algorithms. The solution performs palm vein image capture, feature matching, and identity verification directly on the device, eliminating the need for cloud connectivity. This enhances user privacy and system security while delivering real-time responsiveness with ultralow power consumption making it ideal for smart locks, access control systems, and a wide range of battery-powered smart devices.

WAFERLOCK is a Taiwan-based smart lock brand that designs, develops, and manufactures smart electronic locks, with a focus on smart locks, smart home, and smart building solutions. Its products are marketed in Taiwan as well as overseas markets, including Europe, the United States, and Japan. This collaboration combines Himax’s expertise in endpoint AI and palm vein biometric technology with WAFERLOCK’s product design and manufacturing capabilities, demonstrating the strength of Taiwan’s smart lock ecosystem, from core sensing and AI computing to end-product design and manufacturing.

“As smart homes, smart buildings, and digital access control continue to grow, we expect demand for palm vein biometric technology to increase as customers seek authentication solutions that combine contactless operation, high accuracy, spoof resistance, and strong privacy protection,” said Mark Chen, Vice President of Smart Sensing Business at Himax. “We will continue working closely with ecosystem partners to bring WiseEye’s ultralow power AI and palm vein biometric authentication technology to a broader range of smart locks, access control systems, and other intelligent edge devices.”

About WAFERLOCK Corp.

WAFERLOCK Corp. (Group Stock Code TPEx: 6474), under its proprietary brand WAFERLOCK, has established a strong global presence in smart access control for more than 25 years. Based in Taiwan, WAFERLOCK is a fully vertically integrated manufacturer with capabilities spanning product design, hardware and software R&D, manufacturing, and technical support. Built around two core principles—Security and Simplicity—WAFERLOCK delivers comprehensive smart access solutions designed to meet the evolving needs of residential, hospitality, commercial, and smart building environments worldwide.

WAFERLOCK’s international product portfolio includes smart locks designed for diverse regional door and lock specifications, access control systems supporting both offline and cloud-based management, the WAFERKEY App, and WAFERBOX smart parcel lockers. By integrating hardware, software, and connectivity, WAFERLOCK provides flexible access solutions that help customers enhance security while simplifying access management and everyday operations.

Quality and engineering excellence are at the core of WAFERLOCK’s product development. The company’s lock cases have achieved U.S. ANSI Grade 1 certification and have undergone durability testing of up to one million cycles. Selected products also meet European standards including EN 15684 and EN 16867, with product designs offering up to IP68-rated water and dust resistance. With key technologies and capabilities developed in-house, WAFERLOCK maintains close control over product quality, performance, and reliability throughout the development and manufacturing process.

Today, WAFERLOCK has established a distribution network across more than 25 countries, supported by over 100 distribution partners worldwide. WAFERLOCK holds patents in key markets, including the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Japan, and Taiwan. Its international operations are further strengthened by a regional subsidiary in Japan, enabling the company to provide closer support to customers and partners in the Japanese market. Leveraging its vertically integrated capabilities, WAFERLOCK provides global partners with reliable product quality, supply chain stability, and flexible customization capabilities to address diverse market requirements. From product development and manufacturing to technical support, the company works closely with partners to deliver solutions tailored to different applications and regional needs.

Looking ahead, WAFERLOCK continues to expand its smart access ecosystem by integrating biometric authentication, AI, IoT, and cloud technologies to advance the next generation of smart building and security management.

www.waferlock.com

About Himax Technologies, Inc.

Himax Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: HIMX) is a leading global fabless semiconductor solution provider dedicated to display imaging processing technologies. The Company’s display driver ICs and timing controllers have been adopted at scale across multiple industries worldwide including TVs, PC monitors, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, automotive, ePaper devices, industrial displays, among others. As the global market share leader in automotive display technology, the Company offers innovative and comprehensive automotive IC solutions, including traditional driver ICs, advanced in-cell Touch and Display Driver Integration (TDDI), local dimming timing controllers (Local Dimming Tcon), Large Touch and Display Driver Integration (LTDI) and OLED display technologies. Himax is also a pioneer in tinyML visual-AI and optical technology related fields. The Company’s industry-leading WiseEye^TM Ultralow Power AI Sensing technology which incorporates Himax proprietary ultralow power AI processor, always-on CMOS image sensor, and CNN-based AI algorithm has been widely deployed in consumer electronics and AIoT related applications. Himax optics technologies, such as diffractive wafer level optics, LCoS microdisplays and 3D sensing solutions, are critical for facilitating emerging AR/VR/metaverse technologies. Additionally, Himax designs and provides touch controllers, OLED ICs, LED ICs, EPD ICs, power management ICs, and CMOS image sensors for diverse display application coverage. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Tainan, Taiwan, Himax currently employs around 2,200 people from three Taiwan-based offices in Tainan, Hsinchu and Taipei and country offices in China, Korea, and the US. Himax has 2,555 patents granted and 318 patents pending approval worldwide as of June 30, 2026.

http://www.himax.com.tw

Forward Looking Statements

Factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those described include, but are not limited to, the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Company’s business; general business and economic conditions and the state of the semiconductor industry; market acceptance and competitiveness of the driver and non-driver products developed by the Company; demand for end-use applications products; reliance on a small group of principal customers; the uncertainty of continued success in technological innovations; our ability to develop and protect our intellectual property; pricing pressures including declines in average selling prices; changes in customer order patterns; changes in estimated full-year effective tax rate; shortage in supply of key components; changes in environmental laws and regulations; changes in export license regulated by Export Administration Regulations (EAR); exchange rate fluctuations; regulatory approvals for further investments in our subsidiaries; our ability to collect accounts receivable and manage inventory and other risks described from time to time in the Company’s SEC filings, including those risks identified in the section entitled “Risk Factors” in its Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2025 filed with the SEC, as may be amended.

WAFERLOCK
Contact:

Email:[email protected]
www.waferlock.com

Himax Contacts:

Karen Tiao, Head of IR/PR

Himax Technologies, Inc.
Tel: +886-2-2370-3999
Fax: +886-2-2314-0877
Email: [email protected]
http://www.himax.com.tw

Mark Schwalenberg, Director

Investor Relations – US Representative

MZ North America
Tel: +1-312-261-6430
Email: [email protected]

Marking a new approach to innovation in medical robotics, the new centre will bring advances from a leading surgical robotics research group to patients more quickly

Smith+Nephew (LSE:SN, NYSE:SNN), the global medical technology company, and Imperial College London have launched a five-year partnership to deliver breakthrough research and innovation for robotic surgery for musculoskeletal conditions.

The first-in-kind partnership will bring together a globally renowned academic laboratory with engineers from Smith+Nephew to accelerate the translation of academic breakthroughs in fields such as computer vision and sensing into advanced techniques in robotic surgery.

The techniques will be designed to make robotic surgery less invasive and more intuitive and usable by more than just the specialist centres, leading to better outcomes for patients.

The centre’s launch marks both the first time that UK multinational Smith+Nephew has founded a centre of this kind within a university, and Imperial’s first industry centre in the field of medical technology. 

Departing from traditional models of innovation in medical technology, which is usually carried out by companies or licensed from universities, Smith+Nephew’s experts will work directly with university researchers to co-develop new solutions and will use its scale to bring the cutting-edge techniques to adoption more rapidly than would otherwise be possible.

The new centre will be led Professor Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena in Imperial’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, co-director of the Hamlyn Centre, whose group works on robotics for orthopaedic surgery. At full capacity, the centre will support a senior postdoctoral researcher and up to seven fully-funded PhD studentships, recruited progressively across the five-year programme, working with Smith+Nephew engineers and clinicians in the same space.

The new university technology centre will be situated within Imperial’s Hamlyn Centre, part of the Institute of Global Health Innovation and a driver of research in robotic surgery.

Research will focus on making robotic surgery less invasive and available beyond specialist centres. Research topics include markerless registration and tracking, which removes the pins and rigid markers that current systems bolt to bone, meaning fewer incisions and less hardware for the patient, and better consistency for the surgeon. Another topic is computer vision that reads and adapts to a patient’s anatomy in real time.

Vasant Padmanabhan, President of Research & Development, ENT and Emerging Markets at Smith+Nephew, said, “In Smith+Nephew’s 170^th year, we are proud to partner with a university that embodies a similar heritage in UK medical innovation. By embedding industry experts within one of the world’s leading engineering schools, this centre has the potential to move research into operating theatres at pace, transforming patient outcomes and enhancing the surgical experience.”

Professor Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena from Imperial College London said: “Translational research on health devices has historically had two main routes to patients: licensing or spinout companies. This centre establishes a third: academic engineers working hand-in-hand to help develop products with a major industry partner. There is no doubt that the innovations discovered within this centre will hold major impact for the medical technology industry as a whole and its patients.”

Professor Mary Ryan, Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise) at Imperial College London, said, “Working directly with Smith+Nephew, will allow us to bring advanced innovations rapidly to the clinic, drawing on Imperial’s world-leading academic expertise and the company’s resources and sectoral knowledge. We look forward to further expanding our large-scale partnerships with industry in this space and bringing innovations in medical technology to patients more quickly.”

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Media Enquiries

David Silverman,PhD                     +44 (0)7985 230 707
Imperial College London                [email protected]

Charles Reynolds                           +44 1923 477312
Smith+Nephew                              [email protected]

About Imperial College London

We are Imperial – a world-leading university for science, technology, engineering, medicine and business (STEMB), where scientific imagination leads to world-changing impact. 

As a global top ten university in London, we use science to try to understand more of the universe and improve the lives of more people in it. Across our 10 campuses and throughout our Imperial Global network, our 23,000 students, 8,000 staff, and partners work together on scientific discovery, innovation and entrepreneurship. Their work navigates some of the world’s toughest challenges in global health, climate change, AI, business leadership and more.

Founded in 1907, Imperial’s future builds on a distinguished past, having pioneered penicillin, holography and fibre optics. Today, Imperial combines exceptional teaching, world-class facilities and a habit of interdisciplinary practice to unlock scientific imagination.

About Smith+Nephew

Smith+Nephew is a portfolio medical technology business focused on the repair, regeneration and replacement of soft and hard tissue. We exist to restore people’s bodies and their self-belief by using technology to take the limits off living. We call this purpose ‘Life Unlimited’. Our 17,000 employees deliver this mission every day, making a difference to patients’ lives through the excellence of our product portfolio, and the invention and application of new technologies across our three global business units of Orthopaedics, Sports Medicine & ENT and Advanced Wound Management.

Founded in Hull, UK, in 1856, we now operate in around 100 countries, and generated annual sales of $6.2 billion in 2025. Smith+Nephew is a constituent of the FTSE100 (LSE:SN, NYSE:SNN). The terms ‘Group’ and ‘Smith+Nephew’ are used to refer to Smith & Nephew plc and its consolidated subsidiaries, unless the context requires otherwise.

For more information about Smith+Nephew, please visit www.smith-nephew.com and follow us on X, LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook.

Smith+Nephew Forward-looking Statements

This document may contain forward-looking statements that may or may not prove accurate. For example, statements regarding expected revenue growth and trading profit margins, market trends and our product pipeline are forward-looking statements. Phrases such as “aim”, “plan”, “intend”, “anticipate”, “well-placed”, “believe”, “estimate”, “expect”, “target”, “consider” and similar expressions are generally intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what is expressed or implied by the statements. For Smith+Nephew, these factors include: conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, economic and financial conditions in the markets we serve, especially those affecting healthcare providers, payers and customers; price levels for established and innovative medical devices; developments in medical technology; regulatory approvals, reimbursement decisions or other government actions; product defects or recalls or other problems with quality management systems or failure to comply with related regulations; litigation relating to patent or other claims; legal and financial compliance risks and related investigative, remedial or enforcement actions; disruption to our supply chain or operations or those of our suppliers; competition for qualified personnel; strategic actions, including acquisitions and disposals, our success in performing due diligence, valuing and integrating acquired businesses; disruption that may result from transactions or other changes we make in our business plans or organisation to adapt to market developments; relationships with healthcare professionals; reliance on information technology and cybersecurity; disruptions due to natural disasters, weather and climate change related events; changes in customer and other stakeholder sustainability expectations; changes in taxation regulations; effects of foreign exchange volatility; and numerous other matters that affect us or our markets, including those of a political, economic, business, competitive or reputational nature. Please refer to the documents that Smith+Nephew has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including Smith+Nephew’s most recent annual report on Form 20-F, which is available on the SEC’s website at www. sec.gov, for a discussion of certain of these factors. Any forward-looking statement is based on information available to Smith+Nephew as of the date of the statement. All written or oral forward-looking statements attributable to Smith+Nephew are qualified by this caution. Smith+Nephew does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement to reflect any change in circumstances or in Smith+Nephew’s expectations.

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Trademark of Smith+Nephew. Certain marks registered in US Patent and Trademark Office.