Sun Microsystems Tuesday unveiled an update to its Java Card technology for smart cards that it claims increases support for connecting the cards to wireless devices.

Smart cards, which are more popular throughout Europe than in the U.S., have an integrated processor and hold a variety of personal information and applications. Sun said that, besides increasing wireless support, the new version 2.2 of its smart card platform makes it easier for developers to program applications.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based networking giant said the update has increased support for Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) as well as for standards developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the Third Generation Partner Project (3GPP).

"With more than 200 million smart cards deployed worldwide, Java Card technology is clearly the platform of choice for multi-application smart cards," said Tracey Stout, vice president of marketing for Java and XML Software at Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Smart card solutions based on Java Card technology are being rolled out to users throughout the world for use with applications that require high levels of security, such as financial services, government, personal identity, telecommunications and e-commerce."

The company said Java Card version 2.1 applications will run on the Java Card technology version 2.2 platform without any modifications. In addition, the updated platform supports more types of security and has better memory management, including cryptographic algorithms AES and elliptic curves..

In a statement, Sun said that a number of large companies such as Visa and American Express have committed to Java Card technology for their future smart card applications.

Government agencies are also jumping onboard by issuing Java Card technology-based smart cards as their new identification cards to replace existing "paper" identification cards.

Most recently the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) named Java Card technology as the platform of choice for the Transportation Workers card, the first national identity card for transportation workers. The Department of Defense is issuing a Common Access Card to 4.3 million active duty U.S. military personnel and eligible contractors. The Government of Taiwan said it would use a Java Card technology-based smart card as their new health insurance identification card to all 24 million residents.

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Sun said it would be demonstrating its smart card advances at the Card Tech Secur Tech 2002 conference in New Orleans this week.