Athena’s ultra-secure crypto MCU integrated on Microsemi FPGAs
Athena Group is a provider of security, cryptography, anti-tamper and signal processing intellectual property (IP) cores. With Microsemi, the two companies add Athena’s TeraFire cryptographic microprocessor to the PolarFire field programmable gate array (FPGA) “S class” devices. Claiming to offer the most advanced cryptographic technology in any FPGA, the TeraFire hard core provides Microsemi’s customers with access to advanced security capabilities with high performance and low power consumption.
Athena’s highly secure TeraFire offers the most commonly used cryptographic algorithms, including all those allowed for military/government use by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST’s) Suite B, up to the top secret level, as well as those recommended in the U.S. Commercial National Security Algorithm (CNSA) Suite.
The TeraFire cryptographic microprocessor also supports additional algorithms and key sizes commonly used in commercial Internet communications protocols such as TLS, IPSec, MACSec and KeySec. The core has been used in both application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and FPGA implementations since its introduction eight years ago, and the inclusion of differential power analysis (DPA) countermeasures in the PolarFire FPGA core is designed to increase its appeal to both defence and commercial engineers.
Microsemi’s highly secure, cost-optimized PolarFire FPGAs offer lowest power at mid-range densities with 12.7 Gbps Serializer/Deserializer (SerDes) transceivers, as well as high reliability, for applications including smart connected factory, functional safety, secure communications and weaponry. The TeraFire cryptographic microprocessor enables, Microsemi says, significantly better built-in cryptographic capabilities in comparison to any SRAM-based FPGAs.
The TeraFire core delivers countermeasures against side-channel analysis (SCA) techniques such as DPA and differential electro-magnetic analysis (DEMA) that could otherwise be used to extract secret keys from the device. Every supported algorithm using a secret or private key is available with countermeasures against SCA.
More than a dozen security-focused certifications have been granted to the TeraFire cores present in each Microsemi PolarFire “S class” FPGA family member under the NIST Cryptographic Algorithm Verification Program (CAVP).
Additional key features of Athena’s TeraFire core and Microsemi’s PolarFire “S class” FPGAs include:
• The Athena TeraFire EXP-5200B DPA-resistant cryptographic microprocessor capable of nearly 200 MHz operation, implementing all Suite B, CNSA and additional widely used algorithms
• Enabling high-speed DPA-resistant cryptographic protocols at speeds well over 100 megabits per second, using the TeraFire crypto microprocessor for data security and anti-tamper applications
• Integrated true random number generator for generating keys on-chip and for protecting cryptographic protocols against replay and other attacks using fresh random nonces and initialization vectors
• NIST CAVP-certified implementations of the most widely used cryptographic algorithms, modes and key sizes including AES-GCM, SHA-2 and four types of digital signatures
• The TeraFire crypto microprocessor is extensible with additional object code licensed from Athena or with accelerators attached to it via the PolarFire FPGA fabric, for Suite A algorithm support or even higher performance, for example
• “S class” PolarFire FPGAs include a Rambus/Cryptography Research Incorporated (CRI) DPA patent library pass-through license enabling additional DPA-resistant algorithm implementations designed by customers, or from Athena or other CRI-licensed IP providers; no need for customers to negotiate a separate DPA patent license with CRI for any IP running on S class PolarFire FPGAs
Microsemi’s PolarFire “S class” FPGAs with Athena’s TeraFire cryptographic microprocessor will be available towards the end of the second quarter of 2017. In addition, a soft version of this core is available for Microsemi’s SmartFusion2 SoC FPGAs
Microsemi; www.microsemi.com/polarfire
Athena Group; athena-group.com
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