A source at Infineon acknowledged at the Cartes & IT Security trade show here this week that the company is "on the short list." But she also cautioned that the GPO's recent contracts were awarded only for the first testing phase of the U.S. e-passport project.

It remains unknown which contactless chips or which specific implementations will be eventually deployed in "tens of millions" of e-passports the U.S. government will begin issuing next year.

GPO's e-passport contracts for the test phase went to four companies who submitted bids on so-called book cover sheets. Included in the sheets are: a contactless smart card chip, operating system, module, inlay, antenna and cover stock. The four companies selected by GPO for testing include Axalto, Inc., BearingPoint, Infineon and SuperCom Inc.

Axalto received two awards by GPO. According to Neville Pattison, Axalto's director of business development, technology and government affairs, it bid both Philips' 72-K ISO 14443 Type A and Infineon's 64-K ISO 14443 Type B chips in its e-passport module, "which had our Axalto e-passport operating system ported onto each device."

"We decided to show that Axalto is capable of developing two solutions and not just one, thus emphasizing our independence [from] specific contactless chips or silicon vendors, and strength in developing secure operating systems and innovative contactless assemblies."

He added, "We also did not want to limit our offering to one silicon vendor or show a preference for ISO 14443 Type A or B."

Separately, Infineon was selected by GPO for its own e-passport implementation. Though it's not a system integrator, Infineon formed a team that includes an inlay vendor, an antenna company, a manufacturer of passport covers and others. Its strategy is to assemble its 32-K ISO 14443 Type B chip onto an e-passport. Infineon plans to replace its 32-K chip by the company's new 64-K contactless chip.

The German chip company declined to name its partners. Asked about the company's motivation to respond independently to the U.S. request for proposals, the Infineon source explained, "We knew we were late to the market with our 64-K chip, so in order to position Infineon in the best way to win the e-passport chip business we decided to prove our expertise by showing our own implementation."

Meanwhile, Philips Semiconductors' 72-K ISO 14443 Type A chips are designed into three out of the five e-passport solutions selected by GPO for testing. Axalto, SuperCom and a joint proposal made by Bearing Point and SuperCom are all using the same Philips chip, confirmed Michael Ganzera, marketing manager for e-government and smart identity at Philips Semiconductors.

GPO is currently processing the proposed solutions, according to Axalto's Pattison. The e-passports will then be sent to passport issuance facilities.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology will test the electronic passports to determine their ability to meet durability, security and electronic requirements.

Testing and evaluation is likely to last until at least the end of 2004, according to industry sources. GPO will then select the best from among five proposals for the next round.

In parallel, so-called "mock point-of-entry" tests are scheduled on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Billed as usability tests, e-passports currently tested in Australia and the new U.S. samples will undergo joint testing.

Japan's Sharp Corp. has begun volume shipments of its large-capacity contactless IC module to the Australian government, which recently began an e-passport pilot program. Sharp is supplying the contactless IC module with a 512-kbyte flash memory that conforms to e-passport specifications set forth by the International Civil Aviation Organization and the ISO 14443 Type B standard.

By: DocMemory
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