Mobile Communications

 In 2009 more than 3 billion SIM / UICC cards have been shipped worldwide and a significant number were equipped with security  controller from Infineon.

Standard: 
The major task  of the SIM card in the mobile environment is the authentication in the network, managing the  SMS traffic and allowing after sales updates of the mobile carrier.

New technologies:
New network technologies such as UMTS (3rd generation) and the upcoming   LTE (4th generation) will more and more focus on data  rather than on pure voice and SMS based communication.

Upcoming trends:
SIM cards turn into multi-application UICC (Universal Integrated Circuit Cards). The latest generation of smart phones already shows some of the possibilities and applications such as mobile payment, mobile ticketing and mobile network based internet services as well as automated communication of wireless modules (M2M).  

Following the trend of ever-diversifying markets, Infineon has designed specific memory and controller families for each segment. There is a whole range on offer, covering all applications – from low-memory chips for prepaid public telephones and disposable prepaid SIM cards, up to high-performance controllers featuring multiple interfaces and capable of integrating several megabytes of flash memory.
Yet this powerful, flexible and broad portfolio comes with an astonishing ease of migration between the various families, and outstanding technical support.


SLE 50 family for the SIM mass market
SLE 76 family for the mid-range SIM/UICC market
SLM 76 family for M2M applications
SLE 88 family for the multimedia UICC market and NFC security certified applications

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technology allows devices to communicate with each other without human interaction.
M2M markets will develop globally, with a vast variety of different market segments and applications including:

- In-car ("e-call", stolen vehicle tracing, etc.) 
- Utilities ("smart grid") 
- Routing and Transportation control                                
- Vending machines and POS
- Fleet and vehicle management                                        
- Alarm and security management
- Building technology ("smart building")                           
- Medical and remote diagnostics

An example of the deployment of M2M technology are smart meters used in the smart grid.
Smart meters offer the benefit of efficiently monitoring the consumption of electricity, gas and water remotely, without the need to physically access the meter.
They enable utilities to save on-site meter read out cost and also may – in case of electricity meters - support load balancing thus reduce demand peaks.
The latter may be achieved via price incentives to consumers (higher price in peak periods) and/or via direct control of household appliances via smart meters by the utilities (e.g., start laundry at the time of the lowest electricity price).

Infineon Chipcard and Security offers products that are specifically tailored to the needs of M2M applications. Those applications usually have normally higher quality requirements (temperature range, durability, product lifetime, etc.) than those ofbthe standard chip card market segments. 

Infineon supplies:
• M2M SIM (subscriber identity modules) products for the GSM and LTE mobile telecommunication networks
• M2M secure elements implementing hardware security to protect against fraud and manipulation

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Near Field Communication (NFC) is a new secure wireless connectivity technology between 2 electronic devices. It is based on RF Technology at 13,56 MHz and it operates in a short range of 10 centimeters.

First targeted device of NFC applications is the mobile handset. Indeed, enabling contactless transactions within the mobile handset bring new services and convenience to the end user. Mobile NFC applications are various: ticketing, payment, loyalty programs, reading of NFC tags (smart posters), and so on. For example, a consumer will be able to access public transportation daily, just by swiping his mobile phone in front of the NFC enabled gate.

NFC devices are generally composed by a Secure Element, a ContactLess Frontend (CLF) device coupled with an antenna. The Secure Element is where the applications are stored. It must be secure because supported applications like banking and payment require the highest proven security for their hardware and their operating system. Within a handset, the Secure Element can be either a secure chip embedded into the phone, or a secure SIM card. In this last case, the connection between the SIM and the CLF has been standardized in 2007, and it is called Single Wire Protocol (SWP).

With its vast expertise in SIM and Payment applications, Infineon develops secure SWP microcontrollers which answer adequately to the requirements of the Secure Element. Infineons' SWP chips offer a high proven certification level such as EMVCo and CC EAL 5+ (high) . These chips are tested with the major CLF makers to offer interoperability and flexibility in your choice of components for your NFC solution.

For embedded Secure Elements, Infineon proposes in its portfolio several secure microcontrollers that can be connected to a CLF modem. Last but not least, Infineon offers a wide range of NFC Tags for smart poster applications. These tags can, for example, store an URL address or a voucher that can be read and retrieved by the mobile handset.