Pijnenburg

Pijnenburg was a developer of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) in Vught (Netherlands). In the 1990s, Pijnenburg became known for their in-house developed range of cryptographic chips, such as the PCC100. The development of crypto chips was split-off as Securealink, where the well-known range of SafeXcell processors was developed. The company is now part of Inside Secure.            

In 1992, Pijnenburg was one of the first companies in the world to develop a single-chip DES algorithm, the PCC100. The chip was used by several manufacturers in equipment for financial transactions. The chip was followed a few years later by the PCC200 RSA chip, and in 1997 by improved versions of the two co-processors: the PCC101 (Tripple DES) and PCC201.
 
In 1994, Pijnenburg did the backend processing of the so-called General Crypto Device (GCD), a universal cryptographic chip that was developed by several parties including SICAN in Germany and Philips Crypto BV in the Netherlands.

In the early 2000s, the crypto-division was separated-out and went on as Pijnenburg Securealink BV. The PCC-range was extended with some new developments for SSL and crypto-accelerators. In 2002, Securealink was bought by SafeNet Inc. in the US for approx. US$ 14 million [1]. Securealink became part of the Embedded Security Division of SafeNet and developed the SafeXcel range of cryptographic (co)processors, such as the one shown here.            


On 26 February 2010, the Embedded Security Division of SafeNet, of which the former Securealink was part, was aquired by AuthenTec in the USA. The SafeXcel-range is still available from them. In October 2012 it was announced that Apple had agreed to buy AuthenTec. A month later, on 21 November 2012, Inside Secure in France took over the Embedded Security Solutions activities from Apple and has thereby acquired the former Pijnenburg/Securealink division