GENEVA–STMicroelectronics announced a single-chip microcontroller solution intended for both PC- integrated and freestanding smart-card applications resulting from a partnership agreement with Gemalto – a world leader in digital security and the world’s leading supplier of smart-card readers. The new ST7GEM is a secure MCU in ST’s ST7 family, pre-programmed with smart-card interface software from Gemalto, and requiring the addition of only a few passive external components to become a complete embedded smart-card reader solution.

ST is a longtime leading supplier of MCUs for smartcards and also has been one of the leading suppliers for smartcard reader applications for the last five years. The EMVCo-certified ST7GEM, the latest member of ST’s ASSP (Application Specific Standard Product) microcontroller family, is an enhancement of the established ST7SCR secure MCU which has been in volume production since 2002. It provides an exceptionally high level of security at very low cost, and its embedded Gemalto firmware now enables the addition or creation of smart card reading capability with minimum design effort.

Integrated smart-card readers are an increasingly popular security feature for laptop PCs, enabling user authentication, and protecting sensitive information in healthcare, banking, government and other areas. The ST7GEM is already being used in production by a leading laptop manufacturer, and other industry leaders are currently evaluating and qualifying the device for their own PCs. In addition, it is an ideal solution for standalone readers connected through a USB or serial interface, and for POS (point-of-sale) terminals, PIN pads, mobile phones, PDAs and set-top boxes.

“Our partnership with Gemalto has brought together the application and silicon expertise of the industry leaders to create an easy-to-use solution enabling any manufacturer to implement a smart-card reader,” said Youssef Benmokhtar, Director of the 8-bit Microcontroller Business Unit, STMicroelectronics. “By sparing our customers the need to develop their own application software, we’re providing access to the leading secure software while accelerating our customers’ products’ time-to-market.”

“The synergies between STMicroelectronics, a leader in silicon technology, and Gemalto, a leader in digital security, will allow us to jointly promote this new Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) offer,” added Alain Sigaud, senior vice-president for smart readers & tokens at Gemalto. “Its seamless and cost-effective integration into various devices embedding smart card capability will facilitate their expansion.”

The ST7GEM peripherals include an ISO/IEC 7816 serial host interface; USB 2.0-compliant interface; card power supply, with power-up/power-down control, ensuring compatibility with 5.0V, 3.0V and 1.8V smart-card types; and a card management unit with card insertion and removal detection. Drivers are embedded for a wide range of popular operating systems, and the whole package makes it straightforward to build an EMV-compliant smart-card interface. In addition, the device includes 16 Kbytes of Flash program memory and 768 bytes of RAM, as well as a timer, watchdog and low-voltage detector.

The ST7GEM is entering volume production now, and is available in 24-pin SO and QFN packages, priced at $4.50 in quantities of 1,000. Sample quantities are also available. It is supported by an evaluation kit developed by Gemalto, and by an application note with PCB recommendations, schematics and component bill of materials.