(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
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| Hitachi Develops MULTOS Card Chip for Electronic Money
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October 28, 1998 (TOKYO) -- Hitachi Ltd. announced that it started to
sell a proprietary microcontroller chip called H8/3112 for smart cards
running on MULTOS (multi-application operating system), which is designed
to handle electronic money.
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The microchip is equipped with an 8KB EEPROM and a 24KB ROM for MULTOS
and applications, a company official said.
Mondex International Ltd. of the United Kingdom, a subsidiary of Mastercard
International Inc., has asked global card manufacturers and suppliers
to adopt the MULTOS operating system as a standard technology for electronic
money.
The operating system allows companies and organizations providing card-based
services to integrate a wide variety of cards into one by installing
several applications on a smart card. Card service companies have issued
separate cards, such as credit and debit cards, to meet demands for
each of the financial services that they offer.
Hitachi received an order from Mycal Card Inc., a leading card company
that plans to distribute some 5 million MULTOS cards in 1999 as a credit
card.
In May 1997, Hitachi jointly established the MAOSCO consortium to help
spread the use of MULTOS cards nationwide, together with Mondex and
Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.
More information in English is available at: http://www.hitachi.co.jp/New/cnews/E/981022B.html
(BizTech News Dept.)
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