Jointly Developed Contactless Chip Card Controller from Infineon and Sony Cited for Best Technologic

Joint news release by Infineon Technologies and Sony

Paris, France – November 6, 2002 – Infineon Technologies (FSE/NYSE: IFX) and Sony Corporation today announced that a dual interface chip card controller jointly developed by the two companies and a dual interface controller developed by Infineon were named as Best Technological Innovation 2002 and recipient of a Sesames Award. The award was announced on the occasion of “Cartes 2002” in Paris, France (November 5 - 7, 2002).

The Sesames Awards, now in their seventh year, honor outstanding innovation and application achievements within the chip card industry and related industries. An international panel of nine jurors active in the chip card industry selected the individual recipients from a total of 120 companies that applied for the nine Sesames Awards. The awards recognize the winners in the categories “Best Technological Innovation”; “Best Software”; and “Best Application” in various segments, such as IT security, Transportation, Banking/Finance, Health Care, GSM, E-Commerce, and Loyalty.

Infineon and Sony received the award for the jointly developed dual interface controller, the SLE66CLX320PS, and Infineon for the dual interface controller of its my-C family, the SLE66CLX320P. The products support the contactless interface formats ISO/IEC 14443 type A, type B as well as Sony's FeliCa® and enable contactless cards to be used with all main types of today’s contactless radio-frequency technologies. The contactless interface for chip cards uses low-power radio frequency to communicate information stored on the card to a reader device. Users do not have to insert or physically swipe the card when using the card for applications such as electronic tickets in public transport, electronic purse payments to replace cash transactions, and other uses. Based on their encryption and decryption functionality, the chips enable secure and reliable transactions.

“The combination of Sony’s FeliCa contactless chip card technology and Infineon's expertise in secure chip card ICs expands the capabilities of chip cards. Support for all types of reader infrastructure, including the contactless and contact interfaces, and the proven security competence of Infineon will assure interoperability of multi-application cards and accelerate the adoption of chip card systems in every application field,” said Ingo Susemihl, Vice President and General Manager of Contactless Systems at Infineon Technologies.

”It’s a great honor for us to win this prestigious award for the contactless IC card chip, which Sony has been jointly developing with Infineon Technologies. This chip will allow us to expand our FeliCa technologies into various applications. The new products which result will allow the application of this technology in various future markets,” said Susumu Kusakabe, Senior General Manager of Sony’s FeliCa Development & Technical Division, FeliCa Business Center.

Further information on the Sesames Awards 2002 is available at www.cartes.com.

Further information on Infineon’s contactless product portfolio at www.infineon.com/security_and_chipcard_ics.