Mips unveils 32-bit smart card chip

Mips Technologies took the wraps off its next-generation smart card processors and has introduced a high-performance embedded 32-bit chip.

The company claimed that the next generation of 32-bit smart cards, based on the Mips32 architecture, would provide increased levels of security while hosting multiple applications on a single card.

The SmartMips architecture is an application-specific extension that includes cryptography, code compression, Sun Microsystems' Java Card technology and Microsoft Windows for Smartcards.

Features include a set of instructions that speed up software cryptography, such as public and secret-key cryptography, and supports algorithms including RSA, DES, AES and Elliptic Curve Cryptography.

SmartMips also supports page sizes as small as 1Kbytes to meet the needs of smart card applications and secure memory spaces, the company said.

Popular in Europe, smart cards have an embedded microprocessor that can store hundreds of times more information that traditional magnetic strips and can be programmed to perform multiple applications.

According to Mips officials, it will be possible for one card to store information such as medical and financial details, and be used to conduct online transactions.

Mips teamed with Gemplus to develop the smart card core, the MIPS32 4KSc, which is now available to semiconductor manufacturers.

Brian Knowles, vice president of marketing for Mips, said: "We have developed a product that will become the platform of choice for 32-bit smart cards."