ST31P450 - Dual-Interface Secure Microcontroller for Contactless Banking and e-Identification Applications

The STMicroelectronics introduced new ST31P450 dual-interface secure microcontroller leverages the latest 40nm Flash process as well as enhanced RF technologies. The new ST31P450 microcontroller delivers exceptional robustness and performance for contactless applications in banking, identity, transportation, and pay-television. The ST31P450 is built on the proven 32-bit Arm SecurCore SC000 secure processor and meets ISO 7816 and ISO 14443 Type A smart-card and contactless standards. Also, the microcontroller supports full range of MIFARE libraries including MIFARE Classic, MIFARE Plus, and MIFARE DESFire.

Upgraded RF performance ensures ultra-reliable wireless connections for faster, easier contactless transactions and new low-power cryptographic engines minimize the energy budget and ensure superior product performance at low RF-field strength while executing cryptographic operations. The ST31P450 also comes with optimized loading firmware that makes life easier for card provisioners, offering post-issuance capability. ST31P450 secure microcontroller, and its associated cryptographic libraries, are expected to achieve Common Criteria EAL5+, as well as EMVCo and CUP (China UnionPay) certifications within the coming months.

ST31P450 Specifications:

• CPU Used: Arm SecurCore SC000 32-bit RISC core cadenced at up to 55 MHz
• Supply Voltages: 2.7 V to 5.5 V
• External clock frequency: up to 10 MHz
• User Flash Memory: Up to 450 Kbytes
• User OTP area: 512 Bytes
• User RAM: 10 Kbytes
• Erase/Write cycle endurance: 5,00,000
• Page Erase time: 0.8 ms
• Timers: three 16-bit timers with interrupt
• ESD protection (HBM): 5 kV HBM for ISO pads and 4 kV for AC0/AC1 contactless pads
• Operating temperature: –25 °C to +85 °C

Contactless Features:

• Complies with ISO/IEC 14443 Type A and EMVCo™
• 68 pF tuning capacitor
• Automatic CPU frequency adaptation for optimum power consumption
• 13.56 MHz carrier frequency
• RFUART (RF universal asynchronous receiver transmitter) up to 848 kbps
• 1-Kbyte RF frame buffer in dedicated RFUART RAM
• MIFARE Plus® and MIFARE® DESFire® EV2 hardware and software
• implementation
• MIFARE® Classic available as part of MIFARE Plus®

The ST31P450, with 450KByte non-volatile memory (NVM) and 10KByte RAM on-chip, is in production now.