Chip-card MCUs offer dual contact/contactless interfaces
The ST31’s extremely low-power architecture helps improve communication speed and reliability in contactless applications, in which the card circuitry is powered by RF energy from the reader. The ST31 series chips rely on a highly secure architecture targeting EMVCo and Common Criteria EAL5+/EAL6+ security certifications, capable of supporting recognized cryptography algorithms such as DES, AES, RSA and ECC, while also reducing implementation costs by utilizing the silicon-efficient SecurCore SC000 processor based on ARM’s advanced v7-M microcontroller architecture. This will accelerate conversion to chip cards in transitioning areas such as China, where cost is a major consideration for card issuers. A single-interface version of the ST31 for contact-only application is also available. The ICs come with 16 KB to 52 KB on-chip EEPROM options, the NESCRYPT co-processor for public key cryptography algorithm and the NESLIB certified cryptography library option.
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