Innova Card and Wavecom Launch an Optimized Security and Communication Architecture for EPOS Terminals

Regulatory News:

Innova Card and Wavecom (Paris:AVM) (NASDAQ:WVCM) today announced the launch of a ground-breaking hardware reference design for wireless EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale) terminals. The flexible and robust solution provides the possibility to integrate multiple communications technologies without changing the payment and security software. It will simplify the design and certification process and significantly reduce time to market for manufacturers of EPOS terminals.

The payment and security core of the joint solution has been developed by Innova Card, a leading provider of secure hardware and software solutions. USIP^® is a Secure 32-bit Flash microcontroller that has been tailored for the payment industry. It embeds an extended peripheral set including LCD interface, secure keypad controller, thermal printer interface, mag-stripe interface and multiple smart card controllers. Furthermore and in order to address PCI-PED 2.0 requirements, USIP^® provides a wide range of security features such as DPA/SPA resistant cryptographic functions (AES, 3DES, RSA, ECC), a patented on-the-fly external memory encryption engine (based on the industry standard NIST FIPS-197 AES), a secure Real Time Clock (RTC) and a battery-backup memory with instant erase capability upon tampering. Additionally, time to market is greatly reduced with the availability of a full software development environment that includes EMV payment libraries and Linux operating system.

The data communication element of the solution has been created by Wavecom, a leading provider of embedded wireless technology for M2M (machine-to-machine) communication. Unlike currently available designs, which all require separate physical interfaces to manage different data communication technologies, the new solution provides a virtualized communication interface.

A virtual communication port consists of placing a layer of abstraction between hardware units and the software running on them, abstracting available system resources from a single physical unit and making it act as multiple, independent logical entities. In the Innova Card/Wavecom reference design, this means that a single Wavecom Wireless CPU® (Q2686) can simultaneously manage multiple communication technologies. As a result, EPOS terminals can now integrate data reception and transfer via any type of bearer, such as PSTN, WiFi, WiMax, Ethernet, GPRS, CDMA, EDGE, WCDMA or HSPA without any modification to the payment and security interface, thus eliminating the need for multiple certifications.

Dany Nativel, VP Marketing of Innova card underlines "In the past 5 years, EPOS manufacturers have sought to address local market trends by significantly increasing their product range to include multiple combinations of communication interfaces. The innovative solution that has been designed with Wavecom allows EPOS manufacturers to split their POS architecture into a security and a communication sub-system, simplifying board design and enabling virtually any kind of communication mix without running into complex peripheral driver developments and costly certifications.”

Philippe Guillemette, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President Marketing of Wavecom, added: "When the choice of data communication technologies was limited, it made sense for EPOS terminal manufacturers to invest in the communication technology know-how. With the multitude of technologies approaching the telecoms horizon, this is getting increasingly complex to handle. The solution we have developed together with Innova Card will enable manufacturers to benefit from the advantages of all current and future bearers, without added design and certification efforts.”

To find out more, visit us at stand number 4N118 at Cartes 2008 in Paris, France (4-6 November 2008).

About Innova Card

Founded in 2002 in France, Innova Card develops and markets complex Systems-on-Chip and secure hardware and software solutions for a variety of trusted terminals (EFTPOS, PINPAD, smart card readers, etc.) and applications (payment, healthcare, transportation, tax control, etc). Innova Card’s solutions are based on USIP® Professional IC, the most secure and integrated platform (EMV and PCI-PED 2.0 compliant). Innova Card is the only company that offers global solutions to support terminal manufacturers from the design to the production while achieving advanced security level. For further information, visit http://www.innova-card.com.

Wavecom – the wireless M2M experts

Wavecom is a leading provider of embedded wireless technology for M2M (machine-to-machine) communication. We provide a range of GSM/GPRS, CDMA, EDGE and 3G Wireless CPUs; programmable processors which also act as wireless modules or wireless modems. These are backed by a C and Lua-based cellular wireless software suite which includes a real-time operating system (RTOS), a software development environment based on Eclipse™, and several Plug-Ins (GPS, TCP/IP, security, Bluetooth™, Lua script and more). We also offer a wide range of professional and operated services. Our solutions are used for automotive telematics, smart metering, fleet management, GSM/GPS/satellite tracking, wireless alarms, wireless POS (point of sales), WLL (fixed voice), remote monitoring and many other M2M applications.

Founded in 1993 and headquartered in Issy-les-Moulineaux (France) near Paris, Wavecom has subsidiaries in Hong Kong (PRC), Research Triangle Park, NC (USA), Farnborough (UK), Munich (Germany) and Sao Paolo (Brazil). Wavecom is publicly traded on Euronext Paris (Eurolist) in France and on the Nasdaq (WVCM) exchange in the U.S.

http://www.wavecom.com