An e-passport implementation based on Atmel’s AT90SC12872RCFT contact/contactless secure microcontroller has achieved between one to two seconds recognition cycle in an e-passport reader test. The IC, tailored to serve electronic identity markets, is a dual interface contact (ISO7816) and contactless (ISO/IEC14443) smartcard chip compliant with the new International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) specifications for e-passports. The chip has met the security standards of Common Criteria EAL4+ augmented to AVA-VLA.4 and EAL5+ augmented as well as VISA. This vulnerability assessment corresponds to today's highest known proven resistance against any security attack.

The IC incorporates the secureAVR and features 72 Kbytes of EEPROM memory, 128 Kbytes of ROM program memory and five Kbytes of RAM. The secureAVR 8-/16-bit RISC microcontroller, based on Atmel's AVR architecture, offers strong security mechanisms, a power-analysis attack-resistant DES/tripleDES engine, as well as Atmel's new AdvX crypto accelerator for an optimized trade-off between performance and power consumption.

Independent testing of an e-passport implementation based on the IC verified its reading performance at under two seconds. Interoperability performance with all available market standard readers was recently proven at “The Global Interoperability Test Summit on Electronic Passports” event in Berlin.

“We are really excited about the proven superior performance of this chip. This is the ideal solution not only for e-passports but also for any national ID or driver license application,” commented John Bryant, vice president of marketing for the company. “The market for this chip will grow to over 100 million units per year in the next few years as more and more countries adopt this standard. Once again Atmel is leading the way in high security system solutions.”

Samples of the AT90SC12872RCFT are available now under NDA and security approval.

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