<< I think Philips makes the biggest chip for Smart Cards (and the most secure). I think DKEY uses them for their CAC cards that are used by NSA/DoD, etc. >>
Biggest, one of reasons several users at the moment. Most secure, not so sure.
I haven't followed Datakey to closely lately but in the past they have primarily developed on whatever the hottest Infineon platform was. Recently that was the 66 series. Soon we'll be seing the 88 series:
infineon.com
Don't let the shark bite. <g>
Take a look at the crypto stuff.
The "88" family (in its initial release has the following characteristics:
* 32-Bit RISC microcomputer in 0.25 µm CMOS technology with integrated security concept with Memory Management (MMU) & Protection Unit.
* 136 Kbytes of ROM for application programs, libraries and Device Drivers (typically a smartcard manufacturer like Gemplus, Schlumberger, Oberthur, writes a custom Operating System (OSs) "mask" for this ROM, but the "mask" (firmware code) is fully compliant with 3GGP/SMG9 standards.
* 64 Kbytes of EEPROM as program and data memory
* 8 Kbytes of RAM (scratch pad for computations) for local variables, buffer and stack.
* 1100-Bit Advanced Crypto Engine (ACE) for the PKI stuff providing fast execution of public key crypto algorithms, optimized for RSA and Elliptic Curves with Key lengths up to 2048-bit and dedicated 700 bytes of Crypto-Coprocessor RAM
Possible they are using Philips for DOD stuff now. If so, that is new.
- Eric - |
