Germany-based Infineon Technologies today introduced a new embedded secure element, targeting the growing market for chips that handset makers are including in their NFC-enabled devices.
The new chip, the SLE97400SE, which Infineon says will be available for production in the third quarter, will offer somewhat more memory for applications, 100-kilobytes, about 25% more than in its existing embedded chip.
But perhaps more importantly, the new chip will support the latest GlobalPlatform specifications, 2.2.1, which enables easier implementation and management of multiple applications on the chip by issuers and trusted service managers, and also gives consumers more options for choosing the applications on their handsets.
The standard is believed to be a request, and in some cases perhaps a requirement, by many device makers and by Google for its own Android devices.
Infineon hopes the new chip will help it capture more design wins, especially with Android device makers, by far the largest mobile platform supporting NFC.
To date, the chip maker has only the embedded secure elements to date for NFC-enabled BlackBerry smartphones, including the latest BlackBerry 10 NFC handsets, the Z10 and Q10. They carry the existing Infineon embedded chip, the SLE97144SE, which comes stacked with an NFC controller from Inside Secure.
Infineon says it is sampling its new chip but declined to release any details on which device makers are interested.
Growing Market Opportunity
The stakes are high, with most NFC phones carrying embedded chips that could store payment and other secure applications–though only a small percentage have been used to date. That could change this year with Samsung Electronics’ strategy to preload such payment applications as Visa payWave on the embedded chips in its NFC devices.
Chip makers shipped roughly 100 million embedded chips in 2012, possibly more. That is expected to increase this year, with about 70% of NFC-enabled smartphones again expected to pack embedded chips. Some projections put NFC phone and tablet shipments at nearly 300 million this year.
In figures released last week, vendor group Eurosmart estimated that suppliers shipped 150 million secure elements last year, with some NFC SIM cards, but most of the secure elements embedded chips. It projected that total would increase by 67% to 250 million secure elements, with most expected to continue to be embedded chips.
Infineon will be competing for business in the embedded chip market for Android devices against NXP Semiconductors and STMicroelectronics, with Samsung Semiconductor and Inside Secure also sampling embedded secure chips, or planning to do so.
At present, STMicroelectronics is believed to be the only chip maker with an embedded secure element in production supporting the GlobalPlatform 2.2 specifications, based on the operating system it runs supplied by smart card vendor Oberthur Technologies. The chip, paired with an NFC controller from U.S.-based Broadcom, is being used in Samsung’s Galaxy S 4, scheduled for release this week.
The ST chip carries 1.2 megabytes of total memory and roughly 700K of flash memory available for applications after deducting for the operating system.
Infineon: Big Memory Not Needed
That might sound impressive, but most of that memory isn’t needed, and only adds to costs, contends Jürgen Spänkuch, vice president and general manager for platform security at Infineon’s chip card and security division.
For example, a typical Visa payWave or MasterCard PayPass applet would only consume 20K to 40K of memory; Mifare Classic, even less, at about 10K, he said.
“With our new embedded secure element we’re focusing on the mid-range,” Spänkuch told NFC Times, noting that the chip could provide room for, say, two payment applications, as well as two to four ticketing and loyalty applications.
“This corresponds with the feedback we got from the market and the interest in mid-range devices (chips). We see available space on high-end (embedded secure elements) not used on the market. The only thing we hear (about high-memory chips) is, ‘yes, we have pay the price we don’t use it.’ ”
Like the ST chip, the new Infineon chip uses only flash memory, rather than ROM and EEPROM, as with its existing secure element, the SLE97144SE.
Infineon commissioned a company to develop an operating system to its specifications for the new embedded chip, but Spänkuch declined to say which smart card vendor or other firm developed the OS. Infineon’s existing secure element uses an operating system from Germany-based smart card company Giesecke & Devrient.
NXP Semiconductors is also planning an upgrade for its SmartMX embedded secure elements, to support the latest GlobalPlatform standards and also provide much more memory than the less than 200K of memory for applications its largest embedded secure element offers. In 2012, NXP accounted for most of the global shipments of embedded chips, which were stacked with its NFC modem chip.
Unlike NXP and ST, Infineon decided against developing its own NFC controller, or modem chip. Infineon, NXP and ST are smart card chip makers and will be focusing on the more lucrative market for secure chips rather than NFC modems.
That includes targeting smartphone wireless chipset and processor suppliers that are incorporating NFC in their products. Besides Broadcom, that list includes Qualcomm and MediaTek, which do not have their own certified smart card chip technology to offer device makers.
“We believe in the way NFC functionality is integrated into the connectivity ICs,” said Infineon’s Spänkuch. “We are targeting those chip makers that have a capability to integrate."
In early 2012, U.S.-based Texas Instruments said it would work with Infineon as well as NXP for embedded chips for its planned combination wireless chip. It’s unclear whether TI ordered any chips from either supplier.
No DESFire Support
NXP, which owns Mifare technology, would be able to support all grades of Mifare, including more secure Mifare DESFire and Mifare Plus on its chips. STMicroelectronics also says it has a license from NXP that would enable to support the Mifare protocols, including DESFire, in hardware. But Infineon can only support Mifare Classic.
Classic remains the most popular card application for transit ticketing worldwide and is also used for other applications, such as building access control and loyalty.
But Classic security has been compromised, and while there are other measures fare-collection scheme operators and other service providers can take to mitigate or element risks, some are moving to more secure Mifare DESFire and Mifare Plus.
That could be a problem for Infineon if a device maker wants to be able to support Mifare DESFire on its NFC phones–though there appears to be little interest so far among transit authorities and operators to roll out mobile NFC ticketing.
“We haven’t seen any strong requirement on this one (DESFire),” contends Spänkuch. We are, on other hand, supporting the OSPT."
OSPT, or the Open Standard for Public Transport, is a relatively new technology for fare collection and other services that Infineon has launched with such other chip and card vendors as Inside Secure, Oberthur Technologies and Giesecke & Devrient. Samsung Semiconductor later joined.
The group is positioning its Cipurse protocol and application against Mifare, which it argues is not open, though the OSPT group has no commercial launches or pilots to its credit yet .
Meanwhile, Infineon is using its own technology to connect NFC modem chips to its secure element, called digital contactless bridge, or DCLB. But it says it freely licenses the technology, which it says provides a “fast and secure” connection to the NFC modem and would enable applets on the embedded chip work on when the phone is in power-off mode, depending on the requirements of the application.
Infineon announced the new embedded chip today at the Contactless Intelligence conference in London.