Chip manufacturers Infineon Technologies AG and NXP Semiconductors Germany GmbH and chip card maker Giesecke & Devrient GmbH are among the 11 companies from six European Union countries participating in the European research project BioP@ss to develop a high-security chip card platform. BioP@ss is the biggest chip card research project in the EU. Its goal is to do the technical spadework for the introduction of an electronic ID card in chip card format valid throughout the entire EU.
The BioP@ss research project entails the further development of the security chips, the card operating system and the security software for the Internet PCs used by citizens and public authorities alike. The aim is to ensure that the chips, operating systems and software conform to the various national ID document standards already developed by EU member states.
In their contribution to the BioP@ss project, the two semiconductor companies Infineon and NXP are working on refining encryption technologies for chips. Another main focus is to enhance the data transfer rates between chip card and reader. G&D is developing an innovative chip card operating system that will allow the chip cards to be used with Internet PCs without the need to install additional software components.
The BioP@ss research project has a total budget of some €13 M, half of which is being provided by the participating partners from business and industry.