HITACHI : PIN Secure MultiMediaCard to Support the Secure Ubiquitous Information Society

	March 2003
	Electronics

AUTHORS

Akira Kanehira	Memory Application Dept., Memory Business Unit, Semiconductor & Integrated Circuits, Hitachi, Ltd.
Jun Miyake	Memory Application Dept., Memory Business Unit, Semiconductor & Integrated Circuits, Hitachi, Ltd.
Takashi Totsuka	Memory Application Dept., Memory Business Unit, Semiconductor & Integrated Circuits, Hitachi, Ltd.

OVERVIEW

Security is fundamentally important in this new emerging era of ubiquitous availability and access to information. Hitachi, Ltd. has now developed PIN Secure MultiMediaCard* (PIN-SMMC), a flash memory card product that securely protects confidential content such as copyrighted material and personal and corporate data against unauthorized access. The product features a public-key encryption scheme like other MultiMediaCards, but also incorporates a user authentication function that provides a new level of security. Sensitive data cannot be accessed unless the user is authenticated by correct PIN input, an additional security feature that prevents data from falling into the wrong hands even if the device is lost or stolen. By installing the card in the expansion slot of a PDA or other mobile handheld device, this will provide a powerful tool supporting sales force automation in a mobile environment by enabling sales people in the field to access customer and product related data anytime and anywhere. Management of keys is handled by each individual system, so use of the PIN-SMMC can be flexibly tailored to accommodate different security level requirements.

*:	MultiMediaCard is a trademark of Infineon Technologies AG, Germany, and is licensed to MMCA (the MultiMediaCard Association).

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See PDF file for details(PDFformat, r2003_mar_002.pdf, 86KB)

RELEVANT SITES

	MultiMediaCard Association
	The Hitachi Hyoron (Japanese Only)

KEYWORDS

ubiquitous, PKI, secure MultiMediaCard, flash memory card, PIN

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