Microcontrollers designed for multi-applications

NXP Semiconductors has launched the SmartMX2, a range of secure microcontrollers designed for applications such as e-government, banking, pay TV, mobile transactions and public transport.

The SmartMX2 is built on the Integralsecurity architecture and is designed to provide high levels of security for multi-applications without compromising convenience, performance or design productivity.

The microcontrollers can also be used on access management and device authentication.

A major trend in identification today is the movement toward supporting multiple applications in a single secure smart card and in NFC-enabled mobile phones.

SmartMX2 from NXP is said to remove much of the complexity associated with designing identification cards supporting multiple applications, while integrating high levels of security and performance.

With SmartMX2, NXP is introducing the Integralsecurity architecture designed to protect the integrity and confidentiality of user data and applications targeting CC EAL 6+ certification.

Integralsecurity is a security design built on more than 100 dedicated security mechanisms, which create a dense protection shield with redundancy and multiple layers.

A hardened Fame2 crypto coprocessor with good power efficiency provides even more DPA resilience, serving the full range of RSA/ECC crypto algorithms with a flexible RSA key length of up to 4,096 bits.

In addition, the SmartMX2 includes Securefetch, which protects against light and laser attacks and now covers data other than software code, as well as the Gluelogic feature for advanced protection against reverse-engineering attacks.

The SmartMX2 features a re-engineered memory management unit with good firewalling capabilities for multi-application set-ups.

It is manufactured in advanced 0.09um CMOS technology with seven metal layers, providing further enhanced protection against reverse engineering and probing attacks and creating a highly protective mesh of active and dynamic multi-threaded shielding.

According to a Dhrystone benchmark, SmartMX2 delivers CPU and crypto performance - on both contact and contactless interfaces - that is up to 5.7x faster than its highest performing SmartMX predecessor, while consuming less energy.

Its range encompasses enhances memory options for ROM, RAM, EEPROM and Flash, utilising the same architecture and interface options.

SmartMX2 fully supports NXP's Mifare technology, including Mifare Desfire, Mifare Plus and Mifare Classic.

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