Government ID, Smart Cards, Identification and Authentication

Infineon provides security chips for largest US patient smart card project

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Some 1.2 million patients of two New York hospitals will soon be using ID cards carrying a chip manufactured by Infineon Technologies. The new health smart cards include the patient’s printed photo. To use the card, the patient inserts the card into a card reader and enters a private PIN number to unlock the data on the card’s security crypto-controller.


Neubiberg, Germany – Infineon Technologies AG, a leading supplier of integrated circuits (ICs) for chip cards, announced it is the sole chip supplier for the largest patient healthcare card in United States. Siemens, Mount Sinai Medical Center and Elmhurst Hospital Center have formed a health smart card alliance to deploy up to 1.2 million Patient Health Smart Cards to link as many as 45 affiliated and related medical facilities in the New York metro area. The patient health smart card trial began in late 2006 and is scheduled to end in 2007. In 2008, the health smart card alliance expects to issue approximately 500,000 smart cards which integrate a highly secure Infineon microcontroller.

The patient health smart cards are issued by the affiliated and related medical facilities with the patient’s printed photo. To use the card, the patient inserts the card into a card reader and enters a private, personal identification number (PIN) to unlock the data on the smart card security crypto-controller. The crypto-controller securely stores the demographic data for the patient, including name, gender, contact information; allergies; current medical history; and lab results. The patient card is based on the Health Card Solution of Siemens and meets the US Food and Drug Administration’s requirements for Class 1 medical devices that are mandatory to introduce medical products or services.

“The ideal concept of having integrated care across all hospitals and institutions will take a while,” said Doris Hermann, Vice President and General Manager, Security and Identity Management, Siemens AG. “Using a smart card is a way in between. Because first you have the advantages of data on the card, then we can help hospitals to gradually migrate towards even more sophisticated IT concepts.”

“Compared to the current method of using paper documents, smart card technology improves administrational efficiency and patient safety by providing accurate medical data and insurance coverage information,” said Dr. Helmut Gassel, Vice President and General Manager, Chip Card and Security ICs, Infineon Technologies. “Infineon is committed to serving the health card industry. This program has the potential to further initiate patient smart cards throughout the US.”

Today, Infineon provides its secure microcontroller chips to the world’s largest national patient cards, health insurance cards and social security cards, including Italy, Taiwan, Slovenia, Spain, India, Poland, Great Britain, and Germany.

The Patient Health Smart Card initiative uses a smart card operating system (OS) of Siemens. This OS is embedded onto the highly-secure contact-based Infineon smart card controller SLE 66CX680PE. The high-performance crypto-controller features an integral security concept providing multiple levels of physical protection and encryption and is certified according to Common Criteria “EAL 5+ high” certification. It offers 68 Kbytes of EEPROM, 196 Kbytes of ROM, and 4 Kbytes of RAM.

Further information on Infineon’s chip card IC product portfolio is available at www.infineon.com/security.

About Infineon Infineon Technologies AG, Neubiberg, Germany, offers semiconductor and system solutions addressing three central challenges to modern society: energy efficiency, communications and security. In fiscal year 2006 (ending September), the company achieved sales of Euro 7.9 billion (including Qimonda sales of Euro 3.8 billion) with approximately 42,000 employees worldwide (including approximately 12,000 Qimonda employees). With a global presence, Infineon operates through its subsidiaries in the US from Milpitas, CA, in the Asia-Pacific region from Singapore, and in Japan from Tokyo. Infineon is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: IFX). Further information is available at www.infineon.com[end] 

Infineon Technologies has announced the availability of world’s first security chip solutions compliant to the open standard CIPURSE for public transport applications.

Infineon’s CIPURSE security chip and NFC Secure Element can now be used by public transport companies to issue interoperable contactless tickets, cards and mobile applications for fare payments. Infineon says these will be the first of several CIPURSE compliant products slated for release in the near future.

read more »

VeriTeQ announced it has acquired the VeriChip implantable microchip and related technologies and Health Link Web-based personal health record (PHR) from Positive ID. VeriChip is the FDA-cleared RFID implantable microchip for humans and patient identification.

read more »

Digital security provider Gemalto has launched Dexxis EMV instant issuance card product, designed to streamline and speed up banks’ migration to EMV by bringing card issuance processes in-house.

read more »

Infineon Technologies has released the first samples of its 65 nanometer embedded flash (eFlash) microcontrollers for chip card and security applications.

Co-developed by TSMC, the microcontroller features a 65 nm footprint that provides greater efficiency over former IC technologies, according to Infineon. The partners have also announced the development of new 300 mm wafers as a more efficient alternative to 200 mm models.

read more »

Infineon Technologies announced it’s shipping Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chips that are compatible with devices running the Google Chrome OS.

The security architecture of Google Chromebooks relies on the TPM chip to provide substantial protection against malware. TPM chips also support built-in functions that build on the security architecture in the hardware-backed features.

read more »

In an effort to reduce fraud, the Association of Banks in Singapor announced that it has set guidelines regarding the implementation of smart chips in ATM cards in Singapore.

read more »