Idemia ST teams with GlobalFoundries for entirely European-made smart cards

A two-year partnership is aiming to create a “100 percent” European value chain for smart card technology.

GlobalFoundries is collaborating with Idemia Secure Transactions (IST), a division of Idemia Group, to deliver IST’s new smart card IC. The partnership intends to create an “efficient one-stop-shop solution” and an entirely European value chain for the next generation of IST’s smart card tech.

“Building the first 100 percent European value chain for smartcards based on GF’s 28ESF3 technology is a major step for Idemia Secure Transactions,” says Andrea Bonzo, CTO of Idemia StarChip, Idemia Secure Transactions.

The new smartcard IC is scheduled for mass production by 2026 at GF’s manufacturing facility in Dresden, Germany.

“The collaboration between GF and IST R&D teams has led to the development of the first secure element for payment applications,” Bonzo continues. “Our strategy targets banking and connectivity solutions addressing the challenges of the post-quantum cryptography, for which the 28-nanometer chip technology is particularly suited.”

GlobalFoundries’ 28ESF3 platform is supposed to deliver improved data retention, low read latency and enhanced power efficiency for smart cards, whilst also offering cost and time savings for developers.

IST announced earlier this year it is working with Qualcomm to offer users offline payments on smartphones for Central Bank Digital Currencies. Idemia is also active in the nascent biometric payment cards market, with a card launched in the UAE in late-2022 among its commercial wins thus far.

Article Topics

financial services  |  GlobalFoundries  |  IDEMIA  |  secure transactions  |  smart card  |  smartcards