Renesas and NXP Announce Licensing Agreement on MIFARE Contactless Technology

(Business News & Technology News, 4 Nov 2008)

NXP Semiconductors and Renesas Technology Corp. have expanded the licensing agreement on NXP's MIFARE technology, aiming to build momentum for the availability of advanced payment and Near Field Communication (NFC) offerings in contactless infrastructures.

As a historical MIFARE licensee, Renesas now has further access to NXP's entire MIFARE family.

The license agreement supports the industry's need for extension of contactless applications to new form factors and will further strengthen Renesas' global position in the secure MCU markets for high-end mobile and dual-interface banking applications. Renesas plans to provide a full range of security products with MIFARE to meet the requirements of mobile and contactless payment industries worldwide.

"The booming market for contactless smart card applications is calling for closer industry collaboration. NXP's agreement with Renesas to license the MIFARE portfolio, including MIFARE DESFire and MIFARE Plus, is a step towards providing advanced contactless solutions that bring greater convenience and ease of use to the global consumer. We are delighted to continue to work with Renesas to bring next-generation performance and security to new contactless application deployments," says Christophe Duverne, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Identification business, NXP Semiconductors.

"NXP's MIFARE technology has been hugely successful for contactless application deployments around the world, and the expansion of the MIFARE license agreement ensures that Renesas enhances the secure contactless product portfolio," says Yasushi Akao, Board Director and Executive General Manager of MCU Business Group, Renesas Technology. "The agreement with NXP is enabling us to cater the further emergence of the worldwide contactless ecosystem especially focusing on advanced applications for payment and mobile devices."

The agreement is set to drive the emergence of new and advanced over-the-air mobile phone services based on NFC, such as electronic ticketing and payment, delivering convenient and user-friendly connected services to consumers while allowing mobile network operators to increase average revenue per user.

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