Infineon Technologies said it shipped at least 10 million embedded secure chips during both the third and fourth quarters of 2011 and predicts it will continue to sell “double-digit millions” of embedded chips each quarter after that.
The figures, totaling at least 20 million chips for the second half of 2011, offer a close approximation of how many NFC-enabled BlackBerry Bold and Curve smartphones that handset maker Research In Motion is shipping during the latter half of 2011 and perhaps early 2012 and also how many NFC chips France-based vendor Inside Secure has shipped during the last two quarters of this year.
Infineon, though not revealing the handset models its chips are used in, supplies the embedded smart card chips that come stacked with Inside Secure’s SecuRead NFC chip package. Virtually all of the SecuRead chips have been shipped to RIM for NFC-enabled BlackBerrys.