The center’s current work on optimization the signal processing attempts to attain speeds higher than 10-Mbit/s. Leti is also holding discussions with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), in partnership with Gemalto. The high-speed contactless interface is the outcome of research that Leti has been doing since 2003 within collaborative research projects and on its own.

Contactless smartcards were originally designed for applications such as public transportation tickets, bankcards and access control – processes that require only low data transmission speeds. RFID is currently limited by standard to 848-kbit/s transfer rate.

However, applications such as the transfer of biometric data and multimedia file downloads require higher speeds. CEA-Leti and Nokia have developed a radio frequency front-end IC that supports the high-data rate short-range communications between a reader - typically a mobile phone, and a memory tag, which supports a data rate of 112-Mbit/s.