Mini airport booth displays Terion and Secora Pay demos for high performance government IDs and payment

At Trustech, the tradeshow for innovative payment and identification solutions, Infineon will present the latest member of the Tegrion family, which accelerates future-proof ID applications. Infineon’s mini airport booth will also feature the world’s first PQC-enabled ePassport demonstrator. In addition, visitors can experience the convenience of seamless payment with Secora Pay X, which will be demonstrated in a pop-up manicure salon for fingernails suitable for contactless payment.

The Tegrion SLC26G is a security controller for demanding identity and government ID applications such as ePassports, national eID and eHealth Care systems. The security controller enables customers to quickly and easily implement their operating system and the corresponding applications. Even more, the controller offers highest levels of security, speed, performance and power efficiency that are essential for government ID applications. These require permanent security throughout the life of the documents, as well as fast transaction times, for example at border control when travel documents need to be checked electronically at an eGate. For this ultra-fast contactless communication, the Tegrion SLC26G integrates Very High Bit Rates (VHBR).

In addition, the security controller is equipped with the integrated Integrity Guard 32 security architecture, which provides highest levels of security without compromising on transaction performance. The Integrity Guard 32 digital security technology, combined with the Arm® v8-M instruction set and powerful crypto accelerators, offers highest levels of protection, high communication speed and extremely low power consumption. Based on Infineon’s 28 nm technology, the Tegrion family meets even most demanding security standards and requirements.

Infineon, Bundesdruckerei GmbH and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied and Integrated Security (AISEC) present the world’s first demonstrator for an electronic passport that meets security requirements of the quantum computing era (Post Quantum Cryptography, PQC). The demonstrator shows a solution for contactless data transmission between the ePassport and the border control terminal. The solution is based on a quantum-resistant version of the Extended Access Control (EAC) protocol and secures biometric data during authentication. The security procedures are compatible with established structures and can also implement quantum-resistant encryption.

Biometric payment cards offer a more convenient and hygienic payment experience, as cardholders can verify their identity by simply placing a finger on the card sensor and tapping the card on the terminal. This allows to make the biometric payment process faster than standard PIN-based transactions. To further improve the performance and production efficiency of biometric payment cards, Infineon is working with Fingerprints™ to develop the complete Secora Pay Bio solution. This turnkey solution comes with a pre-certified Java Card operating system including Mastercard and Visa Bio applets for cost-effective, scalable production based on state-of-the-art card manufacturing equipment. A Secora Pay Bio demo will be shown at the Infineon booth, highlighting the key requirements for a successful biometric payment card solution, including the various enrolment options.

This year, Infineon’s partner Smart Chip Switzerland will present an innovative pop-up fingernail salon at the Infineon booth, giving the public the opportunity to test the next level of payment: Brave visitors can have a specially designed inlay with Infineon’s Secora Pay X solution placed directly on their fingernail for on-the-go payment. In addition, numerous other new wearable payment devices, including rings, bracelets, key fobs and watches, will be presented in the service area of the booth. All these devices are equipped with products from the Secora Pay or Secora Connect solution families for connected IoT devices for secured payment. Based on an enhanced NFC Secure Element design, Secora Connect enables smart wearables with payment, ticketing and other applications for both battery-less operation and battery-powered devices with the lowest possible power consumption to maximize battery life for the consumer.

As cities grow, public transport operators are faced with ever-increasing passenger numbers, especially during major events such as football matches and the Olympic Games. Combined with the need for sustainability and convenience, this is creating a rapidly growing market for digital ticketing and smart mobility. However, this requires open standards for designing secured, convenient and interoperable ticketing solutions with the necessary transparency and trust.

Infineon addresses this development with Calypso move, the first secured memory for simple contactless ticketing based on the Calypso® base specification. It enables manufacturers to meet the specific requirements of any transport company or authority and to avoid the use of magnetic strips, barcodes or proprietary tickets. A Calypso move sample card will be on display at the Infineon booth at Trustech.

https://wwww.infineon.com/trustech.

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Rohde & Schwarz 170 GHz power sensors ease use and traceability in the D-band

The new R&S NRP170TWG(N) sensors from Rohde & Schwarz are used in general R&D for 6G mobile communications, novel sub-THz communications, sensing and future automotive radar applications. Accuracy is vital to such complex wideband measurements and the sensors are fully calibrated for long-term stability and can compensate for environmental temperature influences within the specified operating range from 0°C to + 50°C. R&S NRP170TWG(N) sensors have a dynamic range of –35 dBm to +20 dBm and up to 500 measurements per second, making them extremely fast with outstanding performance and the only NMI-traceable RF power sensors for the D-band.
Ease of use
All Rohde & Schwarz power sensors are easy to use and stable with excellent connectivity, letting researchers, developers and production engineers focus on more challenging tasks. R&S NRP170TWG(N) sensors provide stable power readouts even at levels below -20 dBm, have no drift and are resilient to external temperature changes and out-of-band signals (such as far infrared (FIR). Fast measurement speeds and easy digital access to data output are very important in mass production facilities. The R&S NRP170TWG(N) can be connected via USB or LAN and operated with standard SCPI protocols. The new sensors perfectly complement other D-band test solutions from Rohde & Schwarz.
NMI traceability

When developing the R&S NRP170TWG(N) sensors, Rohde & Schwarz collaborated with Germany’s national metrology institute: the Physikalisch-Technische-Bundesanstalt (PTB) and other NMIs as part of a European Union project to establish traceability up to 170 GHz. Previously, NMI traceability was only possible up to 110 GHz. NMI traceability is a prerequisite for commercial and industrial utilisation of a frequency band. Defined power levels need to be maintained throughout a frequency range. RF power is traced to a DC power reference and compared by different national metrology institutes.

Daniel Blaschke, head of development for RF & Microwave Power Meters at Rohde & Schwarz, says: “Through partnering with the PTB and other NMIs we helped extend traceability into the D-band, preparing commercialisation and mass adoption of products operating in this frequency range. Rohde & Schwarz is extremely proud to be the first to transform this technological accomplishment into a commercially viable, traceable RF power sensor up to 170 GHz.

Dr. Karsten Kuhlmann, head of the working group High-Frequency Basic Quantities at PTB, says: “Having accurate and calibrated power levels across the setup in the sub-THz region is no trivial task. Power levels at the DUT measurement plane need to be measured accurately, reliably and traceably to national standards. We are happy to advance the commercialization and mass production of future D-band products with our industry collaboration.”

The new R&S NRP170TWG(N) thermal power sensors are now available from Rohde & Schwarz.

For more information, visit: https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/_63493-197529.html

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Alchip unveils “first automotive ASIC design platform” for a global industry

At the Design Solutions Forum 2023 in Kawasaki, Japan, Alchip Technologies rolled out what is claimed to be the semiconductor industry’s first automotive ASIC platform. It targets the specialised needs of the global automotive industry and streamlines the ASIC design needs of global automotive IC module and component manufacturers, as well as automotive companies, said Alchip.

The platform consists of six modules: Design for Autonomous Driving (AD)/ Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS), Design for Safety, Design for Test, Design for Reliability, Automotive Chip Sign-off, and Automotive Chip Manufacturing (MFG) Service.
Design for AD/ADAS integrates a CPU and neural processing unit (NPU) into the smallest possible die size, while meeting aggressive higher performance and lower power consumption required by automotive applications, said Alchip.

The Design for Safety module follows the ISO26262 pre-scribed flow that includes required isolated TMR / lock-step design methodology. This module also features an experienced safety manager and includes the mandated Development Interface Agreement (DIA) that defines the relationship between the manufacturer and the supplier throughout the entire automotive safety lifecycle and activities.

Design for Reliability includes enhanced electromigration (EM) as part of silicon lifecycle management.  It also covers AEC-Q grade IP sourcing and implementation.

The Automotive Chip Manufacturing Service works with IATF16949 -approved manufacturing suppliers. Services include tri-temp testing by target AEC-Q grade, automotive wafer, automotive substrate, assembly and burn-in.

Design for Test capabilities support in system test (IST) and MBIST / LBIST design, critical and redundancy logic for yield harvest, automotive-level ATPG coverage, and physical-aware ATPG.

The final sign-off module covers an ageing library based on a customer mission profile, OD / UD / AVS / DVFS library support, and the final design for manufacturing sign-off.

The platform will “speed up the development and time-to-market of essential safety-critical ADAS applications, while significantly advancing the innovation with increasing complex autonomous driving implementation and features,” Alchip CEO, Johnny Shen.

Access to the new automotive platform is available now through Alchip offices in Taipei, Silicon Valley, Yokohama, Shanghai, Penang, and its affiliate office in Israel.

Alchip Technologies was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. The company provides silicon and design and production services for system companies developing complex and high volume ASICs and SoCs.  Alchip offers advanced 2.5D / 3DIC design, CoWoS / chiplet design and manufacturing management.

Customers include global leaders in AI, HPC/supercomputer, mobile phones, entertainment device, networking equipment and other electronic product categories.

http://www.alchip.com

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Long range microcontrollers simplify wireless design for smart buildings

Wireless device design expertise gained by STMicroelectronics is combined with its STM32 architecture in the new STM32 SoC which has low power operation and multi-protocol support.

The microcontroller simplifies wireless system design for diverse use cases including metering and monitoring devices in smart buildings, factories and cities, said the company. It is characterised with power-saving features which enable the extension of battery life in the new wireless microcontroller of more than 15 years.

The STM32WL3 wireless microcontroller is designed to be used in remotely deployed applications including metering and monitoring devices and data from alarm systems, actuators, and sensors in smart buildings, smart factories and smart cities. It can help limit power consumption and prioritise activities to improve user experience, service delivery and to reduce the environmental footprint, explained ST.

This is the latest in ST’s lineup of integrated wireless chips. The STM32WL3 contains an advanced, power-efficient multi-protocol radio suitable for long range communication and using license-free frequency bands reserved globally for industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) applications.

The long-range radio on the STM32WL3 microcontrollers operate in the internationally designated license-free frequency bands, 413MHz to 479MHz and 826MHz to 958MHz, with the support for 169MHz coming in 2024.

In addition to the main radio, ST has integrated a low power radio and the system can power down to save energy while listening continuously for a wake-up signal.

The radio is multi-protocol and multi-modulation capable, supporting 4-(G)FSK up to 600kbit per second, 2-(G)FSK, (G)MSK, DBPSK, DSSS, OOK, ASK modulation schemes.

The STM32WL3 microcontrollers can add value to smart connected devices, for example to reduce power and add long range wireless connectivity to existing networking products, as is the case with Lierda which uses the microcontroller’s wake-up radio to minimise power consumption, while the Lierda module monitors and maintains network equipment across a point-to-point or point-to-multipoint wireless connection.

Another customer, Silent Smart Technology, has created a family of modules based on STM32WL3 wireless mictrocontrollers that operate in various sub-1GHz frequency bands. The modules support multiple transmission modes, channel monitoring, wireless relay and other functions. The wakeup feature allows the modules to operate in deep-sleep mode, consuming only about 1microA overall current while remaining ready to return to full operation.

Benoit Rodriguez, wireless business line general manager, STMicroelectronics, said: “Special features such as the wake-up radio and our flow-metering LC sensor controller enable energy-saving designs in smart metering, smart agriculture, and asset tracking that run for up to 15 years from a small battery.”

The radio is multi-protocol and multi-modulation capable, supporting 4-(G)FSK up to 600kbit/s, 2-(G)FSK, (G)MSK, DBPSK, DSSS, OOK, ASK modulation schemes to maximize versatility and ease deployment.

On-board peripherals include an LCD driver, a 12-bit 1Msample per second ADC, analogue comparator, DAC and multiple timers. Together with an integrated balun, RF power amplifier and switch mode power supply, they minimise external bill of materials (BoM) for a cost-optimised solution with short time-to-market, said ST.

Tailored to the specific needs of smart-metering applications, the STM32WL3 embeds an LCD controller and a specific peripheral – LC sensor controller – for fluid flow measurement. The multi-protocol support enables cost-efficient deployment of one single platform over different long-range wireless technologies, including Sigfox, KNX, mioty, M-Bus said ST.

The complete lineup in the STM32WL3 series contains devices with Flash density from 64kbyte to 256kbyte and 16kbyte or 32kbyte RAM, in a 32-pin or 48-pin VFQFPN package. There is also an extended temperature range option, from -40 to +105 degrees C.

All variants are covered with ST’s 10-year longevity guarantee for industrial products. Sample quantities are available now.

https://www.st.com.

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