NEC, a world leader in the semiconductor industry, is consistently bringing down technological barriers. The constant innovation characteristic of its advanced submicron technologies goes hand in hand with the company's massive investments in a truly worldwide manufacturing capability. With microcontroller production surpassing 40 million pieces per month, NEC manufacturing expertise is second to none. A natural choice for the application of NEC's proven microcontroller expertise, the joint development of a new generation of security microcontrollers with the pioneer of the microprocessor card is the initial step in NEC's commitment to the smart card market. Building upon its competency as a world leading broad-line supplier of microcontrollers, memory and logic, NEC intends to become one of the top three suppliers of security microcontrollers by the year 2000.
Security is the most valuable asset for smart card products.
For this reason it has been an utmost priority to provide products integrating today's most sophisticated security features. Highly adapted solutions enable the smart card operating system to guarantee the best overall security. The PD78981x family is a full range of high security microcontrollers designed around NEC's widely used 8-bit core, the 78K0s. This product is designed on a volume 0.8 m process, and features all specific peripheral functions of smart card applications. The family will offer a broad range of memory size to meet the needs of various applications.