Infineon Technologies AG and ARM have announced a long-term strategic collaboration in the field of security controllers for chip card and security applications. Based on the agreement, Infineon will receive an ARMv6M and ARMv7M architecture license. With its own specialized ARM architecture-compliant CPU cores, Infineon will address the current and future needs of the security markets in terms of hardware-based security, combined with the advantages of the industry’s most widely licensed 32-bit CPU technology.
Infineon is the only ARM partner to have an ARM architecture license specifically for security applications. Under this agreement, Infineon is able to integrate its innovative security measures into the heart of the CPU core implementation, while maintaining compatibility with the standard ARM processor instruction set. This approach enables code reuse and access to the wide ARM development ecosystem. Infineon aims to have the first products in volume production by the second half of 2011, initially targeting the Multimedia SIM cards market. In addition, Infineon will combine the ARM architecture and its “Integrity Guard” hardware security technology, designed for use in highly demanding chip card-based and security applications, in future products for high-end security segments.
“With this strategic cooperation, Infineon consequently follows its strategy to base its security products on its own cores. We will create proprietary security cores which combine our state-of-the-art security features along with the specific benefits of the ARM architecture, offering high performance, low power and the ARM ecosystem,” said Dr. Helmut Gassel, President of the Chip Card & Security Division at Infineon Technologies. “In the forefront of hardware-based security developments, Infineon will continue to drive innovation, resulting in superior security products for the benefit of our customers.”
“Our agreement with Infineon is a clear demonstration of collaborative differentiation further extending the applicability of the ARM architecture to the most demanding security applications,” said Mike Inglis, EVP and GM, Processor Division, ARM. “We continue to enjoy considerable success in the smartcard market with our Secur-Core processors and our collaboration with Infineon is an element of our ongoing strategy to enable developers in the embedded security market to be able to utilize the ARM architecture in their future designs.”
ARM and Infineon look back on almost a decade of cooperation, mainly in wireless communication applications. Together with energy efficiency and communication, security is one of the three focus areas of Infineon. Infineon is the number one chip card semiconductor vendor, with 25.5 percent of the worldwide market valued at $2.4 billion in 2008. The company is contributing its quarter-century of security expertise to the effort to increase the security of today's solutions in communications, payment and banking, reliable identification of persons and goods, access protection for data and networks, and digital home entertainment electronics.
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