Date: 20/12/2011

INVIA SAS to use CRI's tech in providing security IP for chips

Cryptography Research, Inc. (CRI), a division of Rambus and INVIA SAS (INVIA) have announced that they have entered into an agreement enabling INVIA to develop products incorporating Differential Power Analysis (DPA) countermeasures for use by licensees of CRI's DPA patents. INVIA provides security-related semiconductor design IP and embedded software to ASIC and FPGA designers.

"As part of our focus on delivering high-quality, tamper-resistant security blocks to our ASIC and FPGA customers, we are pleased to join the Cryptography Research DPA countermeasures developer ecosystem," said Robert Leydier, INVIA's president. "Working with CRI further strengthens the protection from major security threats we offer our semiconductor customers."

DPA is a form of attack that involves monitoring the fluctuating electrical power consumption of a target device and then using advanced statistical methods to derive cryptographic keys and other secrets. Strong countermeasures to DPA help protect tamper-resistant products used in applications such as military and aerospace products, smartphones and other mobile applications, banking, pay television, mass transit, secure ID, secure storage, automobiles and consumer electronics.

"DPA countermeasures are a crucial component of secure systems," said Pankaj Rohatgi, technical director, Hardware Security Solutions at Cryptography Research. "INVIA has developed DPA-resistant hardware cores tailored to address the anti-tamper needs of our licensees, and we are pleased to have INVIA join our DPA countermeasures ecosystem."

Microsemi Corporation has announced the immediate availability of INVIA's differential power analysis (DPA)-resistant products on Microsemi's flash-based FPGA devices. DPA is a technique used by hackers to extract secret keys and compromise the security of semiconductors and tamper-resistant devices by analyzing their power consumption. Microsemi says it is the only major provider of cSoCs and FPGAs to hold a patent license from Cryptography Research, Inc (CRI) for DPA-countermeasures, and to offer INVIA's software libraries for AES, RSA and ECC cryptographic algorithms.