Microsoft Teams With Atmel on Secure Smart Card Systems

Software giant Microsoft has announced a three-year deal with Atmel Corporation, makers of non-volatile memory and RF semiconductors, to produce a secure Smart Card system. Using Microsoft's newly developed Windows for Smart Cards and Atmel's AT90SC AVR family of flash-based Smart Card ICs, the pair plans to make waves in the e-commerce pool and bring security to online transactions with the Smart Card.

In the deal, Microsoft will create development tools for implementation on the Atmel hardware. Tools will include a Visual Basic and Visual C++ application builders, a platform builder, custom module APIs, compilers, and a testing system for Smart Card certification. It will also include the ISO 7816 communications protocol and several payment systems amongst other things.

Atmel's primary responsibility will be to provide AVR secure microcontroller ICs to Microsofts development partners and customers. The hardware will also be required to support all future versions of the Microsoft Windows for Smart Cards operating system.

These ICs from Atmel can support up to 1024-bit keys as well as extremely fast data encryption and decryption. The chips are the only flash-memory based chips in the Smart Card market, which makes it easy to update the data on the card without added security risks.