PARIS – NXP Semiconductors BV and Sony Corp. announced they have created Moversa, a joint-venture aimed at promoting contactless smart card applications in mobile phones using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology.

Both parties agreed that Moversa will plan, develop, produce and market an integrated circuit, dubbed Universal Secure Access Module (U-SAM), that combines NXP's Mifare technology and Sony's FeliCa platform on a single chip.

NXP (Eindhoven, the Netherlands) and Sony (Tokyo, Japan) claimed that Moversa's U-SAM, when used with an NFC chip, will create a universal contactless IC platform that allows consumers to use mobile handset for a host of contactless applications such as mobile payments and transport ticketing, anytime, anywhere.

NXP and Sony said they anticipate first samples of the secure chip will be available by mid-2008 for solutions embedded in mobile phones. Initial commercial deployments are due to start at the end of 2008. For IC manufacturing, NXP and Sony said they are "currently in discussions with the foundries used by both companies."

"We are targeting in the next five years that the level of integration of U-SAM in mobile phones represents 30 percent of the worldwide mobile phone market," declared Guus Frericks, who will lead Moversa alongside Sony's Toshio Yoshihara, to EE Times Europe. This implies "substantial revenues", predict NXP and Sony.

Based in Vienna (Austria), the joint-venture will have a nominal capitalization of 100,000 euros ($146,600) and a total capitalization of $28 million and Sony and NXP will each hold 50 percent of the company.

Moversa is operational since the beginning of October.

When NXP and Sony unveiled in November of 2006 their intention to join forces, they claimed they would establish the venture by the middle of 2007. "We must acknowledge that the discussions between Sony and NXP and the closing of legal aspects required more time than intended and anticipated," specified Yoshihara.

And, although the two parties initially said they would focus on the European and Asian market, Yoshihara indicated that Moversa has "a worldwide scope" and that the United States represents "an opportunity for our company to make good business in a near future."

Frericks noted that employees from both companies are joining the joint-venture. The total staff will depend on the commercial uptake but, in the short term, he said about 50 employees should be working for Moversa.

Commenting on the choice of Vienna to set up their joint-venture, Frericks emphasized the "good, practical location from both companies' perspective". He explained that both parties wanted to be close to NXP's R&D development center in Gratz (Austria) where the MyFare technology originates and benefit from the Japanese international school.

Finally, Yoshihara and Frericks highlighted that Moversa stands for "always in movement, versatile and universal".