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Hardware Security

Securing Public Safety

Many aspects of the modern world—public safety, commerce, finance, supply chain management, transportation, national defense, and many more—depend on information and communications technology for efficient operation. Millions of information processing systems are operating continuously, and are increasingly interconnected for efficiency of communication. The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) drives further massive increases in the number and types of those interconnections.

While the increasing connectivity provides many benefits, it also carries risks. There are increasing opportunities for malicious intervention. Bad actors abound, from small-time criminals bent on petty (or even grand) theft, to large criminal organizations engaging in theft and fraud, to terrorist organizations and hostile state actors pursuing political objectives through subversion.

Some specific attack modes that may be employed by hostile actors include:

  • Accessing and stealing private information
  • Introducing malicious code to subvert a device's functionality
  • Disabling ("bricking") a device
  • Commandeering a device to employ it for malicious purposes
Hardware Security

Hardware security encompasses a variety of functions applicable to different aspects of security. In technology, “security” is a broad concept that consists of multiple disparate and complementary facets. Some facets are privacy (information is protected from being accessed by unauthorized third parties), attestation (actions and claims made by a device are verified as legitimate), authentication (data from a device is verified as actually coming from that device), and protection against tampering either by software (hacking) or physically. This is not an exhaustive list.

Hardware support for security offers advantages over pure software solutions. It generally cannot be modified (it is fixed), and it is harder to attack. It is also faster than software running on a CPU or MCU, which is an advantage for certain complex, time-consuming security functions. Many vendors offer hardware security intellectual property (IP) that can be incorporated into a company’s system or system-on-a-chip (SoC) to provide security functions or speed them up.

A non-exhaustive list of hardware security IPs includes the following:

  • Roots of trust (RoT)
  • Accelerators for cryptographic protocols such as AES, RSA, and ECC
  • Accelerators for secure hash
  • Encrypted storage for sensitive data such as cryptographic keys
  • Monitors for communications, resource access, instruction execution
  • Tampering detection and mitigation
  • Physically unclonable functions (PUFs) to provide non-clonable unique device identifiers
  • Hardware security modules (HSMs), which are comprehensive hardware blocks incorporating several of the above-listed functions
Hardware Security Expertise

XtremeEDA is building a highly-knowledgeable team of hardware security experts. Our formidable experience in SoC and system integration and verification is the solid foundation for taking the next big step of assisting our clients build security into their devices. Working closely with our clients and their designs, our team can identify security vulnerabilities, establish sound design methodologies to ensure security, and propose specific solutions applicable to the client’s application. XtemeEDA’s strong, ongoing partnerships with existing hardware security IP vendors gives us access to and in-depth knowledge of existing security technologies. In this way we can, where applicable, match existing IP solutions to the client’s requirements. In cases where an existing solution does not exactly fit the client’s needs, we can develop fast and robust solutions tailored to the client’s specific application.

XtremeEDA is an experienced partner you can trust!!

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Our Partners

XtremeEDA was founded in 2002 to provide Design and Functional Verification services to the ASIC, SoC, and FPGA hardware industry. For two decades now, our team has distinguished itself for the quality and reliability of our work.
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www.cadence.com

Cadence Design Systems helps engineers pick up the development tempo. A leader in the market for electronic design automation (EDA) software, Cadence sells and leases software and hardware products used to design integrated circuits (ICs), printed circuit boards (PCBs), and other electronic systems. Semiconductor and electronics systems manufacturers use its products to build components for wireless devices, networking equipment, and other applications. The company also provides maintenance and support, and offers design and methodology consulting services. Customers have included Pegatron, Silicon Labs, and Texas Instruments. Cadence gets more than half of its sales from customers outside the US.

www.synopsys.com

Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq:SNPS) provides products and services that accelerate innovation in the global electronics market. As a leader in electronic design automation (EDA) and semiconductor intellectual property (IP), Synopsys’ comprehensive, integrated portfolio of system-level, IP, implementation, verification, manufacturing, optical and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) solutions help address the key challenges designers face such as power and yield management, system-to-silicon verification and time-to-results. These technology-leading solutions help give Synopsys customers a competitive edge in quickly bringing the best products to market while reducing costs and schedule risk. For more than 25 years, Synopsys has been at the heart of accelerating electronics innovation with engineers around the world having used Synopsys technology to successfully design and create billions of chips and systems. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and has approximately 90 offices located throughout North America, Europe, Japan, Asia and India.

www.asicnorth.com

asicNorth was established in January 2000 with one purpose in mind: deliver the highest quality design services possible. In an industry that can be quite volatile at times, it is important to have a design partner that you can depend upon to deliver the skills you need when you need them. A project can only be successful if there are:

Top quality skills on the team
Communication with the customer
Attention to detail
Cost sensitivity
Focus on the schedule

Today, asicNorth is enabling high-tech industry leaders and startups alike with a combination of digital, analog, and mixed-signal design capabilities. Driven to produce successful results, asicNorth is Making Chips Happen™.

www.codasip.com

Codasip delivers leading-edge RISC-V processor IP and high-level processor design tools, providing IC designers with all the advantages of the RISC-V open ISA, along with the unique ability to customize the processor IP. As a founding member of RISC-V International and a long-term supplier of LLVM and GNU-based processor solutions, Codasip is committed to open standards for embedded and application processors. Formed in 2014 and headquartered in Munich, Germany, Codasip currently has R&D centers in Europe and sales representatives worldwide. For more information about our products and services, visit www.codasip.com. For more information about RISC-V, visit www.riscv.org.

www.avery-design.com

Founded in 1999, Avery Design Systems, Inc. enables system and SOC design teams to achieve dramatic functional verification productivity improvements through the use of

Formal analysis applications for RTL and gate-level X verification;

Robust Verification IP for PCI Express, USB, AMBA, UFS, MIPI, DDR/LPDDR, HBM, HMC, ONFI/Toggle, NVM Express, SCSI Express, SATA Express, eMMC, SD/SDIO, Unipro, CSI/DSI, Soundwire, and CAN FD standards.

eda.sw.siemens.com

Siemens EDA
The pace of innovation in electronics is constantly accelerating. To enable our customers to deliver life-changing innovations to the world faster and to become market leaders, we are committed to delivering the world’s most comprehensive portfolio of electronic design automation (EDA) software, hardware, and services.