Andes Technology Corporation Announces Most Advanced Embedded Security Based on Physical Unclonable Functions From Intrinsic-ID Inc. for Its Secure CPU/MCU Cores

Adding Intrinsic-ID's Physical Unclonable Functions to Andes Secure CPU/MCU Cores Raises the Security Level of IoT Devices above the Level on Mobile Phones and PCs

HSINCHU, TAIWAN -- June 01, 2016 -- Andes Technology Corporation, the leading Asia-based supplier of small, low-power, high performance 32-bit embedded CPU cores, announced that it is making available for its secure CPU/MCU cores the Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF) from Intrinsic-ID Inc. of San Jose, California. By adding PUF to Andes CPU/MCU cores, designers building IoT devices can incorporate security that exceeds that found on commercial as well as consumer devices including mobile phones, set-top boxes, and PCs.

"Unlike today's security features that rely on an AES encryption key stored in memory, PUF relies on the unique physical features of the embedded SRAM to generate a key that is entirely unique to each SoC device," said Pim Tuyls, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Intrinsic-ID. "Much like the electronic equivalent of a human fingerprint, the PUF uniquely identifies and authenticates any electronic device. PUFs can be used for secure hardware key management, device and message authentication, to establish a hardware root of trust or to protect electronic supply chains against clones and counterfeits."

"Our secure CPU/MCU cores come with a full complement of hardware security features," said Frankwell Jyh-Ming Lin, CEO of Andes Technology Corp. "These include secure boot, a memory scrambler, side channel attack countermeasures, and secure JTAG debugging. These features will prevent a large percentage of the common attacks an embedded device might have to fight off. IoT devices are different from mobile phones, PCs, and other consumer devices in that there exists no infrastructure that continuously monitors the security of these devices. Many perform machine-to-machine communications and are subject to continuous attacks by hackers. By providing the SRAM PUF from Intrinsic-ID, we can provide our SoC customers with security that exceeds the security found in continuously monitored consumer devices and enable them to make their design nearly hacker proof."

About Intrinsic-ID's SRAM PUF technology

Intrinsic-ID's implementation of PUF technology is based on the properties of SRAM memory, common on most processors today. Every SRAM transistor has slightly different physical properties. These differences result in tiny imbalances that give the SRAM cell a preference to start up as 0 or 1. The differences arise from uncontrollable random process variations during manufacturing. These variations do not affect the proper functioning of the chip but they do result in a unique fingerprint or a physical unclonable function (PUF).

PUFs use random patterns to differentiate chips from each other. PUFs also enable the extraction of unique identifiers and unique cryptographic keys. As PUFs are impossible to duplicate, clone or predict they are very suitable for applications such as secure key generation and storage, device authentication and chip asset management.

Intrinsic-ID's PUF technology has been rigorously tested for most process nodes and has undergone extensive reliability and security assessments. Designs using the PUF technology have received the highest level of government and other security certification including common criteria EAL6+. PUF technology can be added to any Andes secure CPU/MCU design with uninitialized SRAM as a hardware IP block or a firmware solution.

For More Information:

Join our webinar on Tuesday June 21 at 10:00 AM and presenters Emerson Hsiao from Andes and Luis Ancajas from Intrinsic-ID will explain how by adding Intrinsic-ID technology to Andes CPU/MCU cores, designers can incorporate security superior to that on mobile phones and PCs to their IoT designs. Click here to register.

See a demo of the Intrinsic-ID technology during the Andes Embedded Forum on the fourth floor at the Taipei International Conference Center, No. 1, Section 5, Xinyi Rd, Xinyi District, Taipei City, Taiwan 110, on Thursday June 2, 2016.

About Intrinsic-ID

Intrinsic-ID is a world leader in the field of Embedded Authentication as a provider of "Physical Unclonable Functions" (PUF). Using our patented PUF technology, secret keys and identifiers are reliably extracted from the physical properties of chips. The PUF uniquely identifies and authenticates any electronic device. It's the electronic equivalent of biometric identification. PUFs can be used for secure hardware key management, device and message authentication, to establish a hardware root of trust or to protect the electronic supply chains against clones and counterfeits. Intrinsic-ID's security solutions serve a wide range of markets: Embedded systems, IoT, Identification, automotive, communications, content distribution, pay TV, government and defense. Intrinsic-ID is a spin-off from Philips Electronics. The company is headquartered in San Jose, USA and has its R&D office in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Learn more at http://www.intrinsic-id.com or contact us at info@intrinsic-id.com.

About Andes Technology Corporation

Andes Technology Corp. was founded in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan in 2005 to develop innovative high-performance/low-power 32-bit processor cores and associated development environment to serve worldwide rapidly growing embedded system applications. The company delivers the best super low power CPU/MCU cores with integrated development environment and associated software and hardware solutions for efficient SoC design.

To meet demanding requirements of today's electronic devices, Andes Technology delivers configurable software/hardware IP and scalable platforms to respond to customers' needs for quality products and faster time-to-market. Andes Technology's comprehensive CPU/MCU includes entry-level, mid-range, high-end, extensible and security families to address full range of embedded electronics products, especially for connected, smart and green applications.

For more information about Andes Technology, please visit http://www.andestech.com/.