13 June 2008

Zilog Debuts New Arrival To ARM Core Based ASSPs

Zilog, Inc. has announced the Zatara ZA9L1 to its family of ARM core-based application specific standard products (ASSPs) for secure transactions.

The Zatara ZA9L1 ASSP, is an ARM core-based, 32-bit Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) System-on-a-Chip (SoC) solution designed for a variety ofsecurity-critical applications, including payment, identity and healthcare, access control, e-government, and e-administration. Offering the very latest PCI PED certification, the Zatara ZA9L1 provides customers more design flexibility as well as a more integrated security system, according to the company.

All of Zilog's Zatara ASSPs are EMV and PCI PED pre-certified for point-of-sale applications. PCI PED certification is a security-critical worldwide standard that has been established by two organizations - MasterCard and Visa.

"Our PCI PED-compliant Zatara solution expands our offering and our customers choice and it is indicative of our position as an industry leader for point-of-sale applications," explained Keith Bladen, vice president of marketing and GM for the secure transaction group at Zilog.

"Our secure transaction customers depend on our expertise to keep them on the cutting edge of trusted device design, and keep them ahead of the most complex and sophisticated security attacks. These new enhancements achieve this goal,
adding to the overall customer and design experience by showcasing several new security and connectivity features that provide greater levels of integration for those that need it, flexibility, choice, and most importantly, the highest performance with the best security,” added Bladen.

The product also showcases an on-chip Dual-Role USB OTG controller and several security enhancements that strengthen the overall security system against tampering and other attacks, Zilog said. The  Dual-Role USB OTG cuts the time it takes for developers to design trusted devices. It eliminates the need for an external USB controller. The reduced external component count cuts total system costs, reduces power consumption, and streamlines time-to-market, according to Zilog.

"We've added an on-chip, Dual-Role USB OTG to the Zatara  product family, and reduced the number of external components, which means you have a compact, all-inclusive secure transaction product all on one chip. It's just another layer of defense for our customers," explained Bladen.