Fall 2020 Newsletter

Wow. 2020 has played out in ways that none of us would have expected. If we would have predicted a year ago that at this point most of us would work from home, you would have thought that we were dreaming. But here we are at the end of 2020, with this, and many other, unexpected outcomes. Indeed, since so many of us are working from home, more computers, webcams, displays, etc., are being sold. Data centers are growing at high speed. The traditional highways have lighter traffic, but the data highways are getting jammed. And that is good for the semiconductor and security industries. All this processing and transportation of data requires complex semiconductor devices together with strong security to guarantee the confidentiality and authenticity of the transported and processed data. This has fueled strong growth at Intrinsic ID this year, with last quarter seeing record demand for our solutions. As you can read below, we are providing security for most of the systems in our connected world: from the smallest MCUs to the most powerful chips for data centers.

Looking forward to working with all of you to have a strong year end and a good start for a new beginning in 2021.

Stay safe!

Pim Tuyls – CEO, Intrinsic ID

Data Centers 
Fungible DPU: A New Class of Microprocessor Powering Next Generation Data Center Infrastructure
Recently Fungible Inc., a pioneer in data-centric computing, has announced the availability of its flagship product, the Fungible Data Processing Unit. The Fungible DPU™ fills the “third socket” in data center servers, complementing the CPU and GPU, and delivering unprecedented benefits not just in performance per unit power and space, but also strengthening reliability and security. It is optimized for data interchange and data-centric computations, while delivering game-changing performance, footprint and cost efficiencies.

The Fungible DPU is designed from the grounds up to provide uncompromising security, without impacting data processing performance. It leverages state of the art security technology to ensure data is properly authenticated and protected throughout its lifetime. A Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) plays a key role in creating a unique and protected chip identity, based on inherent silicon properties. Fungible selected Intrinsic ID’s QuiddiKey PUF to enable this functionality within the F1 and S1 DPUs.

“Authenticating each DPU and certifying each piece of software it runs are fundamental requirements for building a secure data center”, said Wael Noureddine, Chief Architect of Fungible. “The Intrinsic ID technology allows us to uniquely and securely identify each of our silicons, as needed to achieve these goals”.

IoT Device Platform
Secure Vault by Silicon Labs Achieves Multiple Certifications
Silicon Labs, a leading provider of silicon, software and solutions for a smarter, more connected world, announced that its cutting-edge hardware and software technologies dedicated to securing Internet of Things (IoT) devices against growing and evolving threats have earned third-party IoT security certifications from both PSA Certified and the ioXt Alliance.

Silicon Labs’ Secure Vault is a new suite of state-of-the-art security features designed to help connected device manufacturers address escalating IoT security threats and regulatory pressures. Silicon Labs’ Wireless Gecko Series 2 platform takes advantage of Secure Vault technologies by combining best-in-class security features such as secure boot based on hardware root of trust, secure debug, physical tamper, secure identity for attestation and PUF key management technology (from QuiddiKey by Intrinsic ID) to greatly reduce the risk of IoT security breaches and compromised intellectual property. To learn more about Secure Vault and security in IoT, visit here.

Medical Wearables
GAP9 Gaining Strong Traction in the Market
GreenWaves Technologies announced a next-generation hearables platform based on its GAP9 IoT application processor. Targeting the fast-growing hearables market, GAP9’s unified and easy-to-program architecture enables state-of-the-art sound quality and user experience. GAP9 enables embedding of machine learning and signal processing capabilities into battery operated or energy harvesting devices like these medical wearable devices, as well as IoT sensors in smart building, consumer and industrial markets.

GAP9 also incorporates additional security features protecting device makers firmware and models while also protecting devices from tampering including hardware support for AES128/256 cryptography and a Physically Unclonable Function (PUF) unit by utilizing Intrinsic ID’s QuiddiKey.

“The highly secure root-of-trust solution from Intrinsic ID gives us the ability to provide the necessary security robustness our customers expect from our ultra-low power application processors for hearables and IoT,” said Loïc Liétar, co-founder and chief executive officer of GreenWaves Technologies.

Partner Blog
Unclonable Machine Identities for Industrial IoT Devices
For the IoT to be successful, a security solution is needed that provides all IoT devices with secure machine identities that are verifiable and enables authentication of these identifies throughout the entire life cycle of the devices. An article about IIoT device indentities from the blog of our partner Venafi.

QuiddiKey Blog
“And one (key) to rule them all…”
What is most important when protecting IoT devices? It is Kerckhoffs’ principle that states that a cryptographic system should be secure even if every part of it is public except the key. Hence the most important part of an IoT device to protect is its cryptographic root key.

Video Interview
SRAM PUF Provides an Unclonable Security Mechanism
Richard Nass, EVP at OpenSystems Media, interviews Intrinsic ID CEO Pim Tuyls about the company’s foundational SRAM PUF technology. They discuss how generating and storing root keys with SRAM PUFs provides a strong root for any IoT security architecture.

Memory Controllers
From Security Risk to Security Guard: Managed NAND as a Foundation for IoT Security
As the IoT continues to expand rapidly, non-volitile memory is becoming increasingly important for IoT devices. For this application, NVM contains the valuable data, software, and firmware that are stored permanently, but also need to be protected. Read this article by Intrinsic ID to learn how SRAM PUF technology helps to turn NVM controllers into the foundation for IoT device security.