ST Offers ST19WR66 Chip for Contactless ePassports
STMicroelectronics Inc. (ST, Geneva, Switzerland) has developed dual-interface contact and contactless secure ICs, which allows the storing of biometric records and personal information as required by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) program.
The ST19WR66 has 66 KB of EEPROM that retains data for more than 10 years, ideal for passport-type applications; 224 KB of user ROM can store operating system and program code; and 6 KBZ of user RAM, combined with the eight-bit secure MCU, allow fast data processing for rapid passport/ID personalization during the manufacturing stage and verification in the field.
The new chip also contains a 1,088-bit modular arithmetic processor for public-key cryptography, an enhanced hardware DES engine, and AES-128 software-library capability, which provide applications with rapid data encryption/decryption functions, for the storage of sensitive personal data records, for authentication and for providing digital signatures.
The ST19WR66 is set to ship for passport pilot programs in the fourth quarter, qualified and certified to ISO15408 Common Criteria EAL4+ for volume production by the first quarter of 2005. Delivery will include the chip and contactless packaging to satisfy ICAO specifications. Pricing is between $2.50 and $3.50 each.
