News Article
Infineon and Renesas in smart card software deal
German chip maker Infineon Technologies and Japanese semiconductor firm Renesas Technology, the world's number one and two suppliers of microcontrollers for smart cards, have announced that they will offer a common software interface for their 32-bit families of smart card microcontrollers.
German chip maker Infineon Technologies and Japanese semiconductor firm Renesas Technology, the worlds number one and two suppliers of microcontrollers for smart cards, have announced that they will offer a common software interface for their 32-bit families of smart card microcontrollers.
The standardised software interface will help to accelerate the development of new smart card applications. It will enable card manufacturers to re-use their application-specific software across various smart card IC platforms for mobile communications applications.
New requirements in major smart card market segments such as mobile communication, identification and access control applications demand the performance and address space of 32-bit microcontrollers.
Market experts expect that the additional benefit of software compatibility will further accelerate the introduction of 32-bit solutions, as the smart card industry demands chip card controllers offering high performance and EEPROM memory of at least 64Kb.
Compared to today where smart card manufacturers face significant investment to port their software to different hardware platforms, a common application-programming interface (API) can significantly reduce cost and time-to-market when developing new smart card applications, by standardising the connection between the chip hardware and the operating system.
The API comprises a set of device drivers that provide a convenient interface to all hardware-specific peripherals of the smart card microcontroller including those for crypto co-processors, timers, serial UART interfaces, random number generators and memory management units.
The standardised software interface will help to accelerate the development of new smart card applications. It will enable card manufacturers to re-use their application-specific software across various smart card IC platforms for mobile communications applications.
New requirements in major smart card market segments such as mobile communication, identification and access control applications demand the performance and address space of 32-bit microcontrollers.
Market experts expect that the additional benefit of software compatibility will further accelerate the introduction of 32-bit solutions, as the smart card industry demands chip card controllers offering high performance and EEPROM memory of at least 64Kb.
Compared to today where smart card manufacturers face significant investment to port their software to different hardware platforms, a common application-programming interface (API) can significantly reduce cost and time-to-market when developing new smart card applications, by standardising the connection between the chip hardware and the operating system.
The API comprises a set of device drivers that provide a convenient interface to all hardware-specific peripherals of the smart card microcontroller including those for crypto co-processors, timers, serial UART interfaces, random number generators and memory management units.
