INSIDE Secure first to support breakthrough Kovio RF

2011 INTERNATIONAL CES, LAS VEGAS, USA: Ushering in a new era in mobile consumer brand interaction, INSIDE Secure, a leader in semiconductor solutions for secure transactions and digital identity, became the first manufacturer of near field communication (NFC) solutions to support ultra-low-cost Kovio RF Barcodes, a new category of affordable radio frequency barcodes that makes it practical to add intelligence to everyday things.

Using a mobile phone or other device powered by INSIDE MicroRead or SecuRead NFC solutions, consumers, while they shop, will be able to interact with smart labels on products and smart posters to receive product details, promotional offers, coupons, loyalty points, nutritional information, and other useful information to enhance their retail experience, as well as interact with social media, web sites and other Internet-based services.

"Kovio has achieved a mobile marketing breakthrough with a technology that enables these RF barcodes to be produced so inexpensively that retailers and major brands can use them on everything they sell, opening the door to a level of mobile brand interaction that has only been dreamed of," said Philippe Martineau, executive vice president of the NFC business line for INSIDE Secure. "By supporting the Kovio RF Barcode with our NFC hardware, INSIDE is again demonstrating its leadership in driving the NFC value proposition with NFC applications that people can start using today."

According to Martineau, INSIDE Secure plans to support Kovio RF Barcodes in its NFC products, including MicroRead and SecuRead, as well as its open-source Open NFC (tm) protocol stack, which recently received a Sesames Innovation Award.

Kovio combines its proprietary high-performance silicon inks with high throughput and low cost graphics printing technologies to print Kovio RF Barcode over large areas, on flexible substrates and at a fraction of the cost of conventional silicon technology.

Kovio's printed silicon RF barcodes are currently printed in days, as compared to several months for conventional silicon technology, making them both practical and affordable for mass-market applications and providing an opportunity to serve a market of trillions of products.

"Our goal is to connect the online and physical worlds together through our RF Barcodes, and today we have received a huge boost in achieving this goal with the support our technology has received from INSIDE Secure," said Amir Mashkoori, president and CEO, Kovio.

"With the wide availability of NFC mobile phones and other NFC-enabled devices capable of reading our RF Barcodes through INSIDE's NFC technology, we hope to create new opportunities in brand marketing and advertising at the item level, and thereby enable a new communication medium for retailers and brands to interact with consumers at the point of sale."

INSIDE's third-generation, standards-based NFC solutions are ready for integration into mobile phones and other mobile devices, as well as fare collection systems, point-of-sale terminals and other equipment.

INSIDE's award-winning MicroRead suite combines third-generation silicon, a full set of host interfaces, Open NFC software stack, a reference design, and robust standards support into a mature NFC solution ready for delivering secure payment, transit fare collection and service discovery applications.

SecuRead is a complete, system-in-package NFC solution that integrates the INSIDE MicroRead NFC controller, a high-performance secure element, and a GlobalPlatform-compliant Java Card (tm) operating system to provide a best-of-breed solution that helps mobile device manufacturers bring rich NFC capabilities to market more quickly.

Kovio products powered by INSIDE Secure will be on display and demonstrated at the 2011 International CES being held in Las Vegas, January 6-9, in the TazTag booth (35737) on the upper level of the South Hall.