Product category:
Memory Devices and Modules
News Release from: Spansion
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 25 October 2004
Paris office secures Spansion's European
future
Spansion, the Flash memory subsidiary of Advanced Micro Devices and Fujitsu, has established European headquarters in Paris, France, to serve as its centre for worldwide mobile security.
Spansion, the Flash memory subsidiary of Advanced Micro Devices and Fujitsu, has established European headquarters in Paris, France, to serve as its centre for worldwide mobile security A primary strategic focus for Spansion is to develop advanced security technologies to protect data on memory subsystems
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 4 Jun 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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France, renowned for its expertise as one of the world's leading regions for security, is the ideal location for Spansion's mobile security initiative.
The new office will be led by Managing Director Jean-Marc Julia who joins Spansion from Gemplus, the leader in the smart card industry.
Julia will be responsible for driving the company's European marketing, sales, and engineering efforts in addition to leading the development of technology and industry standards that help safeguard valuable data stored in all types of mobile devices.
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"The European region is absolutely critical to our overall success", Julia said.
"Europe is Spansion's second-largest and fastest-growing market".
"In fact, we are the Flash memory leaders in the automotive, wireless and embedded sectors".
"Strategically, France is home to numerous security standards bodies and significant engineering talent, which will be critical to our innovation in the mobile security arena".
Before joining Spansion, Julia was the Senior Vice President in charge of the Reader Business Unit and R and D for the Financial and Security Services Business Unit at Gemplus.
Prior to Gemplus, he held several management positions in quality, manufacturing and R and D with Hewlett-Packard Company.
A key component of the company's strategy is to work with partners and standards organisations to help focus the industry squarely on a critical business need: securing mobile data.
"Today, professionals, students and families rely on powerful Flash-enabled mobile devices to store and manipulate large amounts of personal and business-critical data", said Julia.
"Securing this information from unauthorised access is an important priority for Spansion, our industry colleagues and local standards bodies.
Ultimately, it's good for the customer and it's good for business".
Spansion has a history of developing security innovations.
For example, the company currently offers a variety of Flash memory products that incorporate advanced sector protection (ASP) technology.
ASP technology is a hardware solution built into Spansion's Flash memory products that, when activated by customer provided software, creates a digital fortress around individual memory sectors.
As a result, it helps safeguard against such threats as cloning, signal theft and unauthorised access to data.
The highest level of security in the suite of options supported by ASP technology is the ability to selectively password-protect sectors of Flash memory with a 64bit password.
More than 1.1 million years are required to try all possible combinations.
Advanced sector protection also complements another security feature in Spansion devices - secured silicon sector.
This technology enables the storage of a permanent electronic serial number that provides a means to uniquely identify a specific Flash memory device to help prevent it from being cloned in applications such as mobile phones.
"With the newly established headquarters in Paris", said Julia, "Spansion is well positioned to accelerate its security innovations and play a significant role in securing data stored on Flash memory subsystems".
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