SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 02/27/13 -- RSA Conference - The FIDO Alliance (Fast IDentity Online), an industry consortium revolutionizing online authentication with the first standards-based open protocol to supplant reliance on passwords, expands membership within days of launching. NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) joins founding members Lenovo, Nok Nok Labs, PayPal, and Validity Sensors on the FIDO Alliance Board. New members Diamond Fortress Technologies and Crocus Technology join founder Agnitio as associates, along with Infineon Technologies, a FIDO Alliance founder and sponsor member.

"Within days of launching the FIDO Alliance, we are excited to welcome our newest board member NXP Semiconductors and associate members Diamond Fortress Technologies and Crocus Technology," said Michael Barrett, FIDO Alliance president and PayPal Chief Information Security Officer. "The FIDO vision of universal strong authentication promises better security, enhanced privacy, more commerce and expansion of services throughout digital industries. NXP's addition to the FIDO board supports our industry goal to make user authentication easier and safer for all parties."

"We believe strong authentication, beyond username and password, is essential to secure cloud services and enable growth of the Internet in new applications," said Sami Nassar, General Manager Authentication PL, NXP Semiconductors. "NXP brings decades of Bank and Government grade security experience and technology leadership to FIDO and the computing industry."

FIDO resonates with an industry struggling to verify identity and raise security, while simplifying the user experience. The FIDO protocol will support a full range of authentication technologies, including biometrics such as fingerprint scanners, voice and facial recognition, as well as existing solutions and communications standards, such as Trusted Platform Modules (TPM), USB Security Tokens, Near Field Communication (NFC), One Time Passwords (OTP) and many other existing and future technology options. The open protocol is designed to be extensible and to accommodate future innovation, as well as protect existing investments. The FIDO protocol allows the interaction of technologies within a single infrastructure, enabling security options to be tailored to the distinct needs of each user and organization.

New associate members Diamond Fortress Technologies and Crocus Technology come to the FIDO Alliance with diverse interests and solutions. Diamond Fortress Technologies provides software for mobile biometric identity security and authentication in both cloud-based and device-based solutions. Crocus Technology offers secure authentication in a proprietary magnetically enhanced semiconductor technology for chip security and embedded memory. Both represent organizations with keen interest in shaping the development of the FIDO protocol in order to ensure that the open standard addresses their use cases and requirements.

As more organizations join the FIDO Alliance, those organizations will define the market requirements, contributing to the FIDO specification and resulting in an ecosystem encompassing more use cases and technologies. The FIDO Alliance invites all companies and organizations to become active members. Interested organizations are encouraged to go to www.fidoalliance.org to find out more and to join the FIDO Alliance.

About NXP Semiconductors
NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) provides High Performance Mixed Signal and Standard Product solutions that leverage its leading RF, Analog, Power Management, Interface, Security and Digital Processing expertise. These innovations are used in a wide range of automotive, identification, wireless infrastructure, lighting, industrial, mobile, consumer and computing applications. A global semiconductor company with operations in more than 25 countries, NXP posted unaudited revenue of $4.36 billion in 2012. Additional information can be found by visiting www.nxp.com.

About The FIDO Alliance
The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance was formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication technologies, and remedy the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. The Alliance plans to change the nature of authentication by developing standards-based specifications that define an open, scalable, interoperable set of mechanisms that supplant reliance on passwords to easily and securely authenticate users of online services.

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