Infineon moves payment card chips to 28nm to tackle shortages ...

Infineon Technologies has moved its Secora payment card chips into 28nm process technology to boost availability.

Payment cards, which are produced by the millions, suffered from capacity issues during the pandemic when using older 40nm and 65nm process technologies. "[This] offers the latest technology as a reliable sourcing option to all regional payment ecosystems," said Infineon. "It [aims] to relieve the pain that payment industry has been experiencing due to the semiconductor shortages in mature technology nodes."

Moving the Secora line to 28nm with embedded non-volatile memory will also provide more innovative product designs, it says.

The product family uses a security controller with certified software integrated into Coil on Module (CoM) chip modules and is using standardized inlays for easy and fast card production compatible with previous devices. One inlay sheet fits the existing and new Secora devices

The CoM system offers maximum flexibility in card design as Infineon uses inductive coupling technology in combination with copper wired card antennas. This supports environmentally friendly cards made of recycled and ocean-bound plastic or wood, as well as high-performance dual-interface metal or LED cards.

Secora Pay devices also support the highest throughput in card production with minimal resources for manufacturing highly robust dual-interface cards. This makes contactless payment technology itself resource-efficient. New value-added services based on Secora Pay's NFC tag functionality enable further use cases such as initial card activation as well as authentication for online banking and for loyalty programs.

The new versions offer a simple onboarding and migration path for card manufacturers. They are backward-compatible with existing Secora Pay product offerings in terms of card production, antenna design, personalization, and product certification. The devices also provide personalization and faster operation, enabling contactless transactions within 155 ms.

"In recent years, touchless payment experience with dual-interface payment cards has become a global standard, among others also driven by the COVID-19 pandemic," said Tolgahan Yildiz, Head of Payment Solutions at Infineon's Connected Secure Systems Division.

"The Secora Pay solution portfolio is tailored to enable manufacturing and issuance of high quality dual-interface payment cards and delivers highest transaction performance with reliable security for trusted seamless payments."

The global dual-interface payment card market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of six percent from 2022 to 2027, starting from an estimated 2.6 billion units in 2022 according to market researchers ABI.

Product versions supporting the latest Visa and Mastercard applications are available now with extremely long approval life time. Certified applets for American Express, Discover and others will follow later this year.