Core News Express | Infineon launches SECORA™ Pay product portfolio using 28nm chip technology; Infineon launches new NFC tag side controller

Features that combine outstanding trading performance with easy-to-integrate full-system solutions

Infineon has expanded the technology process of its SECORA™ Pay solution portfolio to 28nm. Innovative product design enables Infineon to further break through the limits of payment card technology. With this, the product also provides the latest technology with a reliable procurement option for the payment ecosystem in major regional markets. The new product series is the first of its kind on the market to apply leading 28 nm chip technology to embedded non-volatile memory. It aims to alleviate the semiconductor shortage problem encountered by the payment industry at mature technology nodes.

Tolgahan Yildiz, head of the payment solutions product line at Infineon Technologies' Secure Connected Systems business unit, said: "In recent years, due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, the use of dual-interface payment cards for contactless payments has become a global standard. The SECORA Pay solution aims to Enabling the manufacturing and issuance of high-quality dual-interface payment cards, delivering extremely high transaction performance and reliable security for trusted and seamless payments, starting from an estimated 2.6 billion cards in 20221 ^to 2027, globally. The dual-interface payment card market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6%.

The new plug-and-play solution from Infineon offers payment card manufacturers a convenient new customer onboarding and migration path. They are backward compatible with existing SECORA Pay products in terms of card production, antenna design, personalization and product authentication. Additionally, these devices offer excellent contactless and personalization performance, enabling contactless transactions to be completed in 155 ^{milliseconds2 .}

The new product range features a safety controller with certified software integrated into the Coil Module (CoM) chip. The product range also features standardized inlays for easy and fast card production and is compatible with SECORA Pay products in 65 nm, 40 nm and 28 nm technology specifications, and these inlays can be used with both existing and next-generation SECORA Pay product. Infineon integrates inductive coupling technology and copper wire card antennas into the CoM system, allowing engineers to design payment cards with extreme flexibility. The system is therefore ideally suited to future market trends, such as eco-friendly payment cards made from recycled materials and ocean plastic or wood, as well as high-performance dual-interface metal or LED payment cards.

In addition to this, the SECORA Pay solution enables stable and extremely high-yield dual-interface payment cards using minimal resources during the payment card production process. This makes contactless payment technology inherently resource efficient. New value-added services based on SECORA Pay's NFC tag functionality can support more usage scenarios, such as initial card activation and identity verification for online banking and loyalty programs.

[1] Source: ABI research, "Payment Card and Bank Card Security IC Technology", August 2022

[2] Based on the new 2023 Mastercard performance policy, using 144-byte keys

The built-in energy harvesting function of the sensor controller based on near field communication (NFC) technology is crucial for the development of passive smart devices. This feature not only makes the design of IoT smart devices more convenient and can be used in a wide range of applications, but also It can make the equipment work more accurately and efficiently. Infineon's latest NGC1081 will further expand the product portfolio of NFC tag side controllers. This new single-chip IC solution can help IoT industry customers develop lower-cost and smaller intelligent edge computing/sensing devices, ultimately bringing maximum benefits to end users and manufacturers. Smart devices designed based on NGC1081 can be controlled and powered by mobile phones, which makes them suitable not only for medical patches and disposable fixed-point care testers, but also for a wider range of applications such as data loggers, smart thermostats and sensor inlays.

The tag-side controller can support dual power supply functions, allowing it to operate in a passive mode (without battery) or battery-powered mode based on energy harvesting. When working in battery-powered mode, the system can become an independent sensing node by connecting to an external power supply of 3 to 3.3V. In passive mode, the entire sensing system including the IC and its connected sensors can obtain power by harvesting energy from the NFC field of the mobile phone. Supporting dual power supply function coupled with its own galvanically isolated sensing interface, these features not only provide unlimited possibilities for creating more battery-free, maintenance-free innovative sensing applications, but are also suitable for those that meet safety requirements. power applications requiring galvanic isolation.

NGC1081 integrates a low-power ARM® Cortex®-M0 microcontroller and other key components. These integrated components include an NFC front-end device compatible with the ISO14443 type-A standard and an H-bridge-based motor with a current drive capability of up to 250mA. drive. Not only that, NGC1081 also integrates a sensing unit, which is designed based on a 12-bit SAR ADC and has 4 analog signal input ports and an analog output port of a 10-bit DAC. The NGC1081's sensing unit also contains a 12V converter and a built-in temperature sensor that provides ±0.3°C accuracy over the 0°C to 45°C temperature range and -20°C to 0°C and 45°C to 85°C Provides ±0.4°C accuracy over temperature range.

NGC1081, a highly integrated single-chip solution, not only helps customers achieve smaller product designs, but also helps customers reduce the BOM cost of the entire system. In addition, with its unique IC design architecture and professionally designed supporting hardware/software, customers can also design more independent software functions. NGC1081 relies on its easy configuration and diversity of functions to become the best solution that can easily adapt to various applications and special system requirements.

In addition, systems designed based on NGC1081 can have seamless data links with mobile phones, which greatly promotes the adoption of this solution by products based on access to the cloud business model. This seamless connection to mobile phones is made possible thanks to a streamlined and scalable mailbox access concept that ensures data integrity and security during data access. Not only that, but application-specific instructions and information transmitted through the open protocol interface can further extend the protocol layer.