The News

INSIDE Launches High Performance MicroPass(R) L4-2G Contactless Platform

22/01/2007

Next-Generation Intelligent Hardware Platform Provides Greater Flexibility with Multi-Payment Brand, Multi-Application Support

AIX EN PROVENCE, France-INSIDE Contactless, a leading provider of advanced, open standard contactless chip technologies, today announced MicroPass L4-2G, the next generation release of the industry-leading intelligent hardware platform for contactless bank card payments.

With more than 12 million units sold since launch, MicroPass' innovative intelligent hardware design provides optimum read distance, and requires minimal power consumption for contactless bank card payment applications. The new MicroPass L4-2G platform provides multi-payment brand support, which simplifies operations & logistics for card manufacturers who service multiple issuers, many with multiple payment brand requirements.

The new MicroPass L4-2G also features a new open software development environment that makes it easier for card manufacturers, integrators and other third parties to develop and deploy EEPROM resident applications and data files with the core payment applications of MicroPass. Software development tools, a technical support environment, and a developers program will be phased in through 2007 to simplify & streamline the development and deployment of value-added applications on contactless bank cards which are powered by MicroPass.

INSIDE has been committed to continual innovation in improving core hardware performance within MicroPass. The MicroPass L4-2G draws upon the core hardware advantages of the base L4 hardware with improvements in: Speed - payment transaction times of less than 100ms; Power Consumption- less than half the power of general-purpose chips; Performance - cardholders will experience a fast, successful payment transaction.

"MicroPass has become the dominant and preferred platform in the US contactless payment card industry because it supports major payment brand requirements, and it delivers the industry's best combination of performance, reliability, and cost-effectiveness," said Charles Walton, Executive Vice President of Payments for INSIDE Contactless. "The new L4-2G release in our MicroPass product suite of intelligent hardware platforms has been brought to market to deliver greater flexibility and open application development support to our card manufacturer partners, while broadly supporting multi-payment brand requirements. We look forward to providing continued excellence in delivery to our card manufacturer partners and their issuer & service bureau customers throughout the coming year."

Multiple card issuers have deployed MicroPass-powered cards to cardholders who are using them at national merchants where contactless payments are accepted, including: 7-Eleven, McDonalds, CVS Pharmacy, Ritz Camera, Walgreen's, Arby's, along with other regional retail outlets.

About MicroPass(TM)
MicroPass is a family of intelligent hardware platforms designed to power open standard contactless and dual interface bank card payments in all global regions. Based upon a RISC architecture and optimized to the demanding requirements of contactless transactions, each of the MicroPass family of products feature low power consumption, fast transaction processing, and overall performance meeting the demands of issuer organizations in the bank card payments, transit, and access control markets. MicroPass is the platform of choice for card manufacturers and issuers in the US market with more than 12 million bank cards deployed which are MicroPass powered. INSIDE's MicroPass L4-2G is an enhanced, next-generation microprocessor-based contactless chip platform designed specifically to meet multi-payment brand and multi-application requirements within the US contactless payment market. With very low power requirements, MicroPass also remains the most suitable core platform for key fob and alternative form factor deployments.

About INSIDE Contactless:
Founded in 1995, INSIDE is headquartered in France and with global presence in China, Singapore, Poland and the USA. INSIDE is uniquely positioned as the only fabless semiconductor company solely dedicated to the advancement of contactless technology, leveraging one of the industry's largest intellectual property portfolios. Through strategic emphasis in Contactless Payments and Near Field Communications (NFC), INSIDE has been on a rapid growth track over the past two years with more than 12M chips delivered for contactless payment cards in the US market and a dominant position in driving NFC standardization and pilot deployments.