INSIDE Secure and Intrinsic-ID recently announce they are bringing to market a new class of secure microcontrollers for smart cards and other applications that apply Hardware Intrinsic Security(TM) (HIS) to provide the highest levels of security for cloud-based transactions. Hardware Intrinsic Security technology uses the unique attributes of a device to extract high quality security keys, which in turn make the process very secure. By combining INSIDE’s proven secure microcontroller designs with patented HIS technology from Intrinsic-ID, the companies will use the unique physical characteristics of each chip to protect cryptographic keys, and thus make the devices extremely hard to clone or reverse engineer.
Modern ICs are unique due to the deep-submicron process variations manifested during manufacturing. The Intrinsic-ID HIS technology built into a device, such as a secure microcontroller, takes advantage of this physical uniqueness to enable cryptographic keys to be protected without their value having to be stored. Since no key material is present at rest, a very high security level can be achieved.
