ST Buys Incard
ST has acquired a significant smart card manufacturer specializing in SIM cards and USIMs for GSM and 3GSM and probably CDMA2000. This is a departure from industry norm. The major smart card manufacturer's (Gemplus, Schlumberger, G&D, Orga, etc.) write code that is masked on IC's sourced from semiconductor manufacturers like Infineon, ST, Hitachi, and Motorola, and some of them package the silicon in SIM specific modules although the larger smart card manufacturers take delivery of silicon with their specific mask in wafer form and do their own packaging.
Smart card manufacturers print plastic cards, and embed packaged smart card silicon in cards, and prepersonalize the IC chip. Many provide full personalization and issuance services for GSM carriers.
This is the first time I'm aware of that a major semiconductor manufacturer specializing in the production of smart card IC's has ever purchased a smart card manufacturer, but it could be seen as part of the trend for IC manufacturers to become more vertically and solutions oriented and it potentially eliminates or at least minimizes stacked margins.
Incard has a relatively new and very modern state of the art smart card manufacturing facility outside of Naples.
>> STMicroelectronics Buys Smart Card Supplier
RCRNews
May 23, 2003
Geneva: STMicroelectronics has reinforced its interest in the smart card market with the acquisition of Incard, the world’s sixth-largest maker of cards. Incard has rolled out products covering terminals, security, wireless local area networks, mobile business and telecom applications.
“ST has a 20-year track record of business at the leading edge of smart card chip technology, and we are confident that we can contribute substantially to the expansion of its offerings in one of the world’s most promising markets,” said Simone Cavallo, chief executive officer of Incard. <<
- Eric - |
