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News Release from: MIPS Technologies | Subject: MIPS32 4KSd
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 06 November 2002
Security is key for speedy 32bit core
According to MIPS Technologies, the new MIPS32 4KSd is the most secure licensable, 32bit core available today.
According to MIPS Technologies, the new MIPS32 4KSd is the most secure licensable, 32bit core available today "Multi-application smart cards are expected to move into a growth phase over the next three years, driven by the need for heightened security and fraud reduction, as well as improved convenience
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 23 Feb 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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Rising levels of user acceptance of the technology and the launch of sophisticated security, feature-rich smart cards based on processors like MIPS Technologies new 4KSd core will help the market achieve this impressive growth", said Anoop Ubhey, smart card industry analyst at Frost and Sullivan.
The high-performance, low-power, 4KSd core builds on the company's smart card expertise and the latest enhancements to the MIPS32 architecture to provide an advanced solution for a broad range of applications that require high levels of system security and performance.
The 4KSd core, running at 200MHz, meets the high-performance requirements for emerging secure data markets and at lower frequencies provides the small size and low power consumption necessary for next generation smart cards.
Further reading
64bit soft core has integral floating-point unit
In response to customer demand for a 64bit synthesisable processor core with floating point, MIPS Technologies has introduced the MIPS64 5Kf core.
Boosted performance for 32bit soft core
MIPS Technologies has launched its next generation 32bit, high-performance, low-power core, the MIPS32 4KE family.
MIPS cores join Synopsis IP library
More than 25,000 design engineers who use the Synopsys DesignWare IP library to jump-start their designs will soon have access to the MIPS Technologies highly configurable MIPS32 4KE family of synthes
Applications for the new core include point-of-deployment security modules for set-top boxes, smart cards, secure data storage, and others where the protection of information from unwanted tampering is of critical importance.
"We live in an increasingly security-conscious world where protecting personal information from unwanted discovery and corruption is a major issue for both consumers and businesses", said Kevin Meyer, Vice-President of Marketing at MIPS Technologies.
"MIPS Technologies has addressed this need with its 4KS secure data family which now includes the 4KSd core".
The new core offers the highest security of any licensable processor core, due to the on-chip security enhancements of the SmartMIPS application-specific extension (ASE).
These include the secure memory management unit, which partitions applications and protects the sensitive data within each one by preventing unauthorised access by rogue applications.
In addition, the 4KSd core has unique and extensive anti-hacker and power analysis countermeasures that can be configured by the SoC designer.
The 4KSd core also has the lowest interrupt latency of any secure licensable processor core, a benefit of the recent enhancements to the MIPS32 architecture, which allows the core to respond more quickly to attack.
The SmartMIPS ASE offers flexible, high-performance, software-programmable cryptographic calculation for both public- and secret-key algorithms, including RSA, DES, AES and elliptic curve.
Because it enables cryptography in software, it eliminates the need for a hardware coprocessor, resulting in lower power consumption, reduced SOC size, and lower overall system cost.
In addition, multiple applications running on a 4KSd core can use different encryption keys without any loss in performance.
The 4KSd core delivers 270DMIPS at 200MHz, making it the highest performance, licensable processor core designed for the security market.
"Cryptography algorithms change constantly as codes change and markets evolve, so the ability to change algorithms in software within a secure environment has never been more important", said Meyer.
User defined instruction set extensions are a powerful and unique feature of the 4KSd core that enable expert designers to further differentiate their secure SoC applications by allowing user extensions to the processor in order to create unique features for security and significantly increase performance for cryptography and other applications.
The 4KSd secure data core, which is synthesisable and portable across silicon manufacturing processes, can be easily integrated into SoC designs.
Technical specifications include: worst-case frequency of 200MHz; 1024bit RSA signature authentication in less than 15ms at 200MHz; power consumption of 0.18mW/MHz; and a core size of 0.7mm2, excluding caches.
The 4KSd core is based on the MIPS industry-standard architecture, which is supported by a strong infrastructure of tools, software and support services.
The core supports standard operating systems such as JavaCard.
In fact, the SmartMIPS ASE increases the overall performance of virtual machine-based languages.
The MIPS32 4KSd core is available now.
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