Sun Microsystems revealed at the RSA Conference in San José that it will add support for Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) in its Sun Java System Web Server 7.0.

"[ECC] uses very small key sizes and is more efficient than the technology we use today," said Sheueling Chang, a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Labs.

"It provides strong security on small devices that come on the net today: cellphones, PDAs and even tiny wireless sensors. All these devices are very limited in their capabilities and power, but they need the same level of security protection."

ECC uses shorter digital keys which require less processing power and have a limited impact on battery life.

Sun has been a major contributor to the technology that is part now part of the Secure Socket Layer and Transport Layer Security protocols.

Sun has also contributed ECC code to the open source OpenSSL and Network Security Services cryptographic libraries, unlocking the technology for Firefox and other open source browsers.

Sun's Web Server 7.0 is scheduled for release this summer as part of the Java Enterprise System.