Innova Card Adopts Industry’s Most Secure Licensable Technology from MIPS Technologies for Secure Payment Applications

To ensure highly secure transactions of data between consumers, service providers and the financial industry, Innova Card, a supplier of secure solutions for Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) smart card trusted terminals and FINancial Transactional IC Card READers (FINREAD), has taken a license for MIPS Technologies' MIPS32™ 4KSd™ core, the companies announced today. The 4KSd core is the industry's most secure licensable processor technology and will form the basis for Innova Card's Universal Secure Integrated Platform (USIP) Consumer and Professional platforms, which will be available by the second quarter of 2004.

The MIPS-Based™ USIP platforms from Innova Card are EMV and FINREAD compliant and can be integrated into any smart card device for payment applications. The USIP Professional platform offers POS terminal manufacturers the opportunity to smoothly migrate to the EMV standard by developing high-performance, cost-competitive products that meet the needs of banks and merchants. The USIP Consumer platform is a ready-made solution for the deployment of mass market applications for consumers to make secure transactions on the Internet.

The adoption of standards, like EMV, as well as the increasing deployment of banking smart cards worldwide, has led industry analysts Frost & Sullivan to estimate that 10 million smart card terminals and 11 million personal readers will be shipped worldwide by 2005.

"The EMV migration and the adoption of new standards like FINREAD will be accelerated thanks to more secure solutions based on high performance and low-cost hardware trusted devices," said Bruno Bernard, president of Innova Card. "Innova Card's secure technology, utilizing the MIPS32 4KSd core, gathers all these characteristics and relies on the smart card technology extended to open System on Chips platforms."

"Whether it is via cell phone, the Internet or a vending machine, end-to-end security in the transaction chain of electronic commerce is of the utmost concern for both consumers and service providers," said Jack Browne, vice president of worldwide sales at MIPS Technologies. "The unique security attributes of our 4KSd core and SmartMIPS architecture are second to none within the embedded industry. They enable customers, such as Innova Card, to develop ultra-secure platforms while leveraging the benefits of the industry-standard MIPS architecture. This helps companies lower overall development costs and get to market quickly."

As the basis of the USIP platform, the MIPS32 4KSd core provides the performance required to execute cryptographic algorithms. Additional security features of the fully synthesizable 4KSd core, such as random pipeline slips to disguise timing and power profile, its efficient virtual machines and support of multi-applications also contribute to the overall security of payment transactions based on the USIP platform.

About Innova Card
Innova Card is a semiconductor fabless company that supplies secure solutions for trusted terminals by extending the smart card technology onto System on Chip platforms. These EMV and FINREAD compliant solutions are based on USIP (Universal Secure Integrated Platform), the most secure and the most integrated component. USIP integrates all security and application management functionalities required to build new generations of smart card terminals. Innova Card's components can be integrated into personal devices like Internet PC readers, PDAs, mobile handsets for GSM, wireless LAN modems, USB tokens, and above all POS terminals concerned with the EMV migration worldwide. Founded in 2002 by former ST and Gemplus executives, Innova Card is based out of La Ciotat, France and can be reached at +33 (0) 442.98.14.80 or www.innova-card.com.

About MIPS Technologies
MIPS Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores for digital consumer and business applications. The company drives the broadest architectural alliance that is delivering 32- and 64-bit embedded RISC solutions. The company licenses its intellectual property to semiconductor companies, ASIC developers and system OEMs. MIPS Technologies and its licensees offer the widest range of robust, scalable processors in standard, custom, semi-custom and application-specific products. The company is based in Mountain View, Calif., and can be reached at +1 (650) 567-5000 or www.mips.com.