PARIS — Bolstered by its recent merger with Securealink BV, SafeNet Inc. is intensifying its efforts to penetrate the embedded security market with a range of chips, software and boards products. The company will introduce its SafeXcel-810 encryption IC for smart card readers, originally designed by Securealink, on Tuesday (Feb. 19) at the RSA Conference in San Jose, Calif.

Cees Jan Koomen, the former Securealink chairman who now heads SafeNet's Embedded Security Division, said SafeNet's products are used in a diverse range of systems, from Cisco routers to mobile handsets. Newly added to that portfolio is SafeXcel-810, a chip originally designed by Securealink, for smart card readers and tokens. SafeNet is unveiling the encryption chip Tuesday (Feb. 19) at the RSA Conference in San Jose, Calif.

Founded in 1983, SafeNet originally offered cryptographic solutions to the U.S. government, then established itself as a major player in the virtual private network market. Koomen said SafeNet's merger with SecureaLink was a good fit "in the market, technology and geographical dimensions." Securealink's chip products, its strengths in the secure socket layer (SSL) market, and its European customers complement SafeNet's software-based solutions and U.S. customer base, he said. "In order to succeed in this market, you really need to have both software and hardware solutions, and VPN and SSL products," Koomen said.

The SafeXcel-180 chip performs all encryption functions necessary to make a secure smart card reader, providing secure PIN entry, an LCD interface, and authenticated download of applets to a reader, SafeNet said. NMB Technologies Inc., a leading keyboard manufacturer, will use SafeXcel-810 in secure keyboard readers for e-commerce transactions, home banking, and identity verification on a PC.

SafeNet has long aimed to find a mass market for its security products. "In order to drive the [product] cost down, we've recognized that a large consumer market is necessary," said chief technology officer Mike Kaplan. Its two-pronged strategy is to sell boxes directly to end users in the VPN market, and to sell its security modules, chips and boards to OEMs.

The SafeXcel-810 takes a different approach to accomplishing a goal set by the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA), a computer industry initiative established in 2000 by Compaq, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and others. The group seeks to make a security coprocessor a standard part of a PC motherboard. But the PC market's sluggishness over the past 18 months has dulled OEMs' passion for adding a cryptographic feature to their PCs.

The TCPA's proposed solution is good "from the infrastructure and architectural perspectives," Koomen said, but an SafeXcel-810 chip embedded into a PC keyboard will "make your computer safe without waiting for changes in PC architecture," he said.

Priced under $10 apiece, the chip answers the growing need for securing e-commerce transactions, logons or access to medical records, Koomen said. On-chip interfaces eliminate the need for external components, he said. The chip contains a 24-MHz 8051-compatible processor and three cryptographic accelerators, according to SafeNet.