Microchip claims first pre-provisioned hardware-based IoT security

By Gina Roos, editor-in-chief

Microchip Technology Inc. claims the industry’s first pre-provisioned hardware-based IoT security solution, using the ATECC608A secure element, provides secure key storage in a three-tier offering to address deployments of all sizes for greater flexibility. Microchip’s Trust Platform for its CryptoAuthentication family can authenticate to any public or private cloud infrastructure.

Addressing low-, mid- and high-volume device deployments is a key differentiator of Microchip’s Trust Platform. This is particularly of benefit to smaller companies that don’t have in-house security expertise or other resources to configure  and provision each connected IoT device.

Developed to make it easier for all-sized companies to implement secure authentication, Microchip’s Trust Platform provides developers with a three-tier offering, which delivers out-of-the-box pre-provisioned, pre-configured or fully customizable secure elements. These tiers enable developers to select the best platform for their designs.

The three tiers are Trust&GO, TrustFLEX, and TrustCUSTOM.

• Trust&GO , for the mass market, provides zero-touch pre-provisioned secure elements with a minimum orderable quantity (MOQ) as low as 10 units. Device credentials are pre-programmed, shipped and locked inside the ATECC608A for automated cloud or LoRaWAN authentication onboarding.

(The ATECC608A provides Common Criteria Joint Interpretation Library (JIL) “high”-rated secure key storage with hardware-based root of trust storage and cryptographic countermeasures. The ATECC608A can be paired with any microcontroller and microprocessor.) 

• TrustFLEX  offers the flexibility to use the customer’s certificate authority while benefiting from pre-configured use cases. These use cases include baseline security measures such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) hardened authentication for connecting to any IP-based network using any certificate chain, LoRaWAN authentication, secure boot, Over-the-Air (OTA) updates, IP protection, user data protection, and key rotation. 

• TrustCUSTOM  enables complete customization, providing customer-specific configuration capabilities and custom credential provisioning.

For prototyping, developers can use the Trust Platform Design Suite, which includes:

• A guided “use case tool”
• Executable Python tutorials running on Jupyter notebooks
• C code examples for each use case
• A “secret exchange” utility
• The Trust Platform hardware development kits

Devices are available in volume production as follows:

• Trust&GO for TLS (ATECC608A-TNGTLSx-B): $1.20 with a MOQ of 10 units*
• Trust&GO for TLS (ATECC608A-TNGTLSx-G): $0.77 with a MOQ of 2,000 units*
• Trust&GO for LoRaWAN (The Things Industries ATECC608A-TNGLORAx-B and Actility ATECC608A-TNGACTU-B): $1.40 with a MOQ of 10 units*
• TrustFLEX for LoRaWAN any join servers (ATECC608A-TFLXLORAx): $0.938 with a MOQ of 2,000 units*
• TrustFLEX (ATECC608A-TFLXTLSx): $0.845 with a MOQ of 2,000 units*
• TrustCUSTOM (ATECC608A-TCSTMx): $0.883 with a MOQ of 4,000 units*
  *uDFN (x = U) or SO8 (x = S)

Development tools include:

• CryptoAuth Trust Platform kit: $13
• ATECC608a Trust Platform kit: $14

Devices and development kits may be purchased at Microchip’s purchasing portal or through one its authorized distributors.