Contactless Smart Cards, RFID, Payment, Transit and Security

Infineon, IBM partner to produce secure smart card chips

Friday, June 18, 2010

Infineon Technologies AG announced that IBM will manufacture Infineon-designed integrated circuits (ICs) used for secure identification applications, including electronic passports compliant with international travel regulations and the U.S. Personal Identity Verification cards. The planned production at IBM’s chip fabrication plant in Burlington, Vt. provides U.S. manufactured components for suppliers to U.S. government electronic identification programs.

Infineon and IBM began a collaboration in 2007 that included licensing of the embedded Flash technology used to produce secure ICs. This technology base will be used to manufacture security microcontrollers based on the Infineon SLE 78 architecture, which features ‘Integrity Guard’ hardware security technology.


Infineon developed the SLE 78 family and ‘Integrity Guard’ security technology for use in chip-based high-end security identification and payment areas with its need for security as well as products with contactless performance. The SLE 78 products received the Common Criteria EAL5+ security certification for use in electronic ID documents and chip card applications by German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).

Both the IBM Trusted Foundry and Infineon’s Dresden plant are security certified according to “Common Criteria,” an international standard designation for the integrity of manufacturing and the supply chain from producer to end-customer. This provides Infineon customers with two fully-qualified sources for advanced security chip technology. [end] 

NXP Semiconductors announced that its SmartMX secure contactless microcontroller chip has been chosen to power the new German contactless National Identity card.

The German government has selected NXP as the supplier of an inlay solution containing a SmartMX chip, packaged in an ultra-thin module. Issuance of German contactless ID cards, which will replace the current paper-based IDs, will start in November. More than 60 million cards are expected to be rolled out over the next ten years.

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In order to share information about various deployments and uses of PIV credentials there will be an information sharing day for federal officials on Aug. 4. The purpose of the ICAM Information Sharing Day is to provide an forum for agencies to understand and share information related to implementation activities being taken by early adopters of ICAM programs.

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A partnership between idOnDemand and Directory Concepts could mean the streamlining of smart card issuance for buildings, computer login, electronic signatures, VPN and encryption management.

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The August meeting of the influential Government Smart Card Interagency Advisory Board (IAB) was recently held in Washington D.C. FIPS201.com was on hand to cover the event and has provided, as a service to the IAB and the smart card community, an audio recording of the presentations. Click on the link below to access a list of audio and accompanying PowerPoint slides (in pdf format).

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The July meeting of the influential Government Smart Card Interagency Advisory Board (IAB) was recently held in Washington D.C. FIPS201.com was on hand to cover the event and has provided, as a service to the IAB and the smart card community, an audio recording of the presentations. Click on the link below to access a list of audio and accompanying PowerPoint slides (in pdf format).

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idOnDemand and Ingersoll Rand have partnered to enable smart card technology and secure identity development. This effort allows small and large businesses the ability to compile the necessary credentials of an individual so that they may access both a physical building or online secure network.

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