Infineon powers new MyKad

MyKad is a multi-application national electronic identity card, including biometric identification, which will allow the implementation of numerous additional functions such as driver’s license, eHealth, ATM, eSignature and eGovernment services. In the past years, Malaysia issued approximately two million new identity cards each year (cf. Smart Insights Report “Government eID in Southeast Asia”).

The utilized Infineon Solid Flash product combines high level of flexibility provided by dedicated Non Volatile Memory (Flash, EEPROM) technologies with reliability and a sophisticated security concept. A full range of Solid Flash products are Common Criteria certified by the BSI (Federal Office for Security in Information Technology) in Germany as well as type approved by EMVCo.

MyKad also uses Infineon’s Integrity Guard security technology. For identification documents, it offers long lasting security with encrypted Dual CPU-core. With this technology, data is encrypted along the entire data path during processing. The security controller core has two processing units, constantly checking each other’s correct function by utilizing error detection.

According to the industrial association Eurosmart, 240 million security chips for security documents were delivered in 2011. Infineon claims its share of this market segment amounts round 40%, adding that it is the only semiconductor supplier who has been shipping to the ePassport projects of the world’s five most populous countries in 2011, namely: China, India, USA, Indonesia and Brazil.