A supplier of semiconductor components to defense, aerospace, industrial and communications markets, Microsemi Corporation MSCC has entered into a partnership with Intrinsic-ID, a provider of cyber physical security solutions based on physically unclonable functions (PUFs) to develop a secure boot solution for mission critical electronic systems.
The solution, basically intended for electronic systems in government, aerospace and defense applications, is a new way to create a comprehensive secure boot process, from silicon to the system level.
It provides users with control and protection over provisioning at each start-up of sensitive boot code into programmable components such as Altera & Xilinx XLNX field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and system-on-chips (SoCs).
These elements are frequently used for mission critical applications in military and aerospace, data centers and cloud computing, and need maximum security. Providing protection to a system comprising several components such as FPGAs and microprocessors is a complex process.
Therefore, the combination of Microsemi FPGAs and secure authentication protocols through the use of PUF technology offers full system reliability and privacy protection for safely booting a complex electronic system.
Microsemi has built a safe boot protocol for protecting third-party FPGA logic from being cloned, reverse engineered or fiddled with. The company has released the low power consuming, small-footprint flash-based SmartFusion 2 SoC FPGA, which works as a secure boot manager. SmartFusion2 first carries out its own integrated secure boot and then, working as a root-of-trust, controls the added large FPGAs and SoCs within the system with their secure boot.
Sensitive encrypted bitstream or object code is sent through the SmartFusion2 FPGA to the target FPGAs or SoCs only after successful recognition of the target device and verification of its initial boot code through the use of the Intrinsic-ID PUF. The sensitive code is verified and decrypted on the target device.
The kind of PUF used on the target FPGA is called a "butterfly PUF” which is a soft PUF. It can be integrated in any FPGA design and comprises a range of circuits, each including two cross-coupled memory elements that have a bi-stable output behavior.
Microsemi's secure boot solution for FPGA/SoCs along with the soft PUF is available now.
Microsemi is a global provider of advanced timing and synchronization solutions and has a comprehensive portfolio of precise time and frequency products. The company consistently introduces new and improved products that have enabled it to secure customer loyalty and boosted revenues. The new products will help in boosting its market share and thereby revenues.
Microsemi currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Better-ranked stocks include NVIDIA Corporation NVDA and Texas Instruments Inc. TXN, both sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
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