Microsemi launches cryptographic FPGA cores
The cores, designed for use on Microsemi’s FPGAs, are part of Escrypt’s CycurCORE product family comprised of fast and efficient IP-cores for common cryptographic primitives, the companies said. The cores are available for use with Microsemi’s ProASIC 3, IGLOO, Fusion and SmartFusion FPGAs.
"DPA is a serious threat to a wide range of fielded devices, from tactical military systems to emerging internet enabled devices. These new cores with DPA countermeasures, running on Microsemi FPGAs, provide maximum security while imposing the minimum technical burden on system developers," said Rich Kapusta, vice president of terrestrial products for Microsemi’s SoC Products Group (formerly Actel Corp.).
Last year, prior to being acquired by Microsemi (Irvine, CA), Actel licensed technology from San Francisco-based Cryptography Research Inc. to enhance the security of its products against DPA and other side-channel related attacks.
Microsemi and Escrypt said the new Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) cores incorporate countermeasures to defeat side-channel attacks, making them among the most secure FPGA implementations available. DPA and related techniques relying upon electromagnetic radiation can be used by an attacker to extract the secrets being processed inside a device such as cryptographic keys being used in a microcontroller, by observing unintended leakage of information via unintended side channels.
Optimized for Microsemi FPGAs, Escrypt’s AES-128 implementation provides a high data throughput with a low hardware footprint, making it suitable for a wide range of embedded applications, according to Escrypt. Escrypt’s hardened AES IP-core combines several logical countermeasures against DPA attacks including algorithmic masking and time randomization, the company said.
In addition to the AES core, Escrypt announced a side-channel resistant ECC IP-core. Microsemi and Escrypt have each licensed Cryptography Research’s DPA countermeasure portfolio, meaning that customers don’t have to pay additional licensing fees to Cryptography Research, the companies said. Additional pricing information was not provided.
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