Microchip announces the CEC1702 hardware cryptography-enabled microcontroller which addresses the increasing need for security measures, such as secure boot, driven by the continual growth of Internet of Things (IoT) applications.
The CEC1702 is a full-featured ARM® Cortex®-M4-based microcontroller with a complete hardware cryptography-enabled solution in a single package. This low-power but powerful, programmable 32-bit microcontroller offers easy-to-use encryption, authentication, private and public key capabilities and allows customer programming flexibility to minimise customer risk. The CEC1702 also provides significant performance improvements when compared to firmware-based solutions. The device’s hardware cryptographic cipher suite reduces compute time by orders of magnitude over software solutions by providing, for example, a 20-50x performance 
improvement for PKE acceleration as well as 100x improvement for encryption/decryption. This robust hardware-based feature set results in applications that can run security measures quickly, effectively and with significantly lower cost and power consumption.
Whether it is being used as a security coprocessor or a standalone microcontroller, the CEC1702 delivers a multi-dimensional defence against attacks, including:
- Pre-boot authentication of system firmware: Providing an immutable identity and a root of trust to ensure that the firmware is untouched and has not been corrupted
- Firmware update authentication: Verifying that the firmware update has not been corrupted and is from a trusted source
- Authentication of system-critical commands: Attesting that any system-critical command is from a known source with authorisation to make the given change, preventing potentially devastating actions
- Protection of secrets with encryption: Safeguarding code and data to prevent theft or malicious activities
Microchip simplifies the addition of authentication and encryption to connected designs by offering a full development suite including hardware and software tools as well as peripheral libraries and crypto
Application Programme Interfaces (APIs) to accelerate design cycles.
The CEC1702Q-B1- SX is in production volume.
For more information, visit Microchip’s Web site at: http://www.microchip.com/promo/CEC1702
Microchip Technology
www.microchip.com