SecurCore - the industry standard architecture of choice for smart cards
- Around 20 silicon licensees worldwide
- Most major smart card silicon vendors and OEMs use SecurCore architecture
G+D welcomes […] an open architecture business model in cost-sensitive, high-volume applications, which I am keen to see repeated in the SIM through silicon manufacturers focusing their support on ARM technology-based designs.” Oliver Richter – VP, Telecommunications, Giesecke & Devrient
“ST will address tomorrow's application demands by combining high performance and low power 32bit processing with the most advanced embedded Flash technology.", ST
"We are looking forward to integrating the ARM SecurCore SC300 […], as NXP believes it will emerge as an industry standard for 32bit smart card technology,” Henri Ardevol, GM, Smart Cards, NXP
“Samsung expects to deliver more exciting products to market [that] are designed to significantly reduce time to market for our customers in introducing new smart card applications,” Dr. ChilHee Chung, Senior VP, Samsung
SecurCore - shaping the future of smart cards
As the smart card market continues to grow significantly, it is also moving away from legacy 8/16 bit proprietary architectures towards industry standard architectures such as ARM, which provide the performance and efficiency that is beyond the capabilities of existing solutions.
At the high end, the industry is witnessing a trend towards service consolidation. Mobile phone SIM cards are evolving into devices which can also handle banking payment systems and mass transit ticketing. Dual interface devices are becoming increasingly common. The SecurCore family is ideally placed to meet the design challenges created by the new requirements.
| Design Challenges | SecurCore Benefits |
|---|---|
| Consolidated or multi-interface designs exceed the performance capability of 8/16-bit processors. | SecurCore provides powerful 32-bit solutions that can easily handle multiple service applications. |
| Complex systems often have a large memory space exceeding 16-bit addressing range, but do not wish to sacrifice the code density benefits of 16-bit processors. | SecurCore provides full 32-bit memory addressing, while matching or exceeding code densities achieved with 16-bit processors through the Thumb®/Thumb-2 instruction sets. |
| Advanced security algorithms need powerful compute engines. | SecurCore is based upon powerful ARM processors capable of handling computationally intensive algorithms. |
| Relying on multiple processors to handle various services impacts design complexity, power consumption, cost and risk. Multiple systems also require multiple development tools. | A single SecurCore device is capable of meeting the diverse demands of various services such as telecommunications and banking. This reduces system complexity, silicon area and power consumption, leading to faster time to market and massive cost savings. |
| Smart card industry faces ever increasing pressure on profit margins. OEMs demand fast time to market and maximum ROI. | Adopting the proven industry-standard open processor ARM architecture increases profitability, provides faster time to market and reduces risk. |
