ARM has announced a security processor based on its Cortex-M0 core.
The 32bit SecurCore SC000 is aimed at replacing 8 and 16bit processors in contact and contactless smartcards for banking and transport, and in government ID including passports, driving licences and health cards.
In particular, it is intended for smartcards which are run more than one application - which need blocks of code to be verifiably separated, company marketing director Haydn Povey told EW, and at ID cards including passports which have to store large amounts of biometric data.
He cites as examples transportation fare cards that can also be used for shopping, and the forthcoming EU passport specification that looks like it will require several fingerprints to be carried alongside an iris scan.
Exactly what modifications have been made to the M0 core are not going to be revealed.
The result is claimed to have a minimum of 12,000 gates and to have the same footprint as the single-cycle form of that 8bit embedded computing favourite: the 8051.
Performance is said to be close to that of the Cortex-M0: 0.9DMIPS/MHz and >100MHz clocking.
Firm power figures are not available, but Povey suggested that the smallest SC000 in 180nm silicon would be close to the Cortex-M0 figure - 62uA/MHz.
"It will probably be within 10% of this, so 70uA or below," he said. "A single cycle 8051 will perhaps need 40uA, but you get less done per cycle. In DMIPS/mA, the SC000 will get five times more work done than a single-cycle 8051."
One of ARM's arguments for producing a low-end security processor to sell alongside its existing SC100 (ARM7) and SC300 (Cortex-M3) is that 8 and 16bit processors are running out of steam as users demand more security.
"There are some devices out there that do a credible job, bit the indications are that things are going to get more complicated. As concern for protection grows, algorithms will get stronger so the memory footprints will get larger," ARM product manager Sumit Sahai told Electronics Weekly. "The SC000 is a processor that you can chose to have 128bit AES, and you can chose to have 256bit AES. Is the 8051 capable of 256bit, I am not sure." Adding: "Low cost 8 and 16it microcontrollers are typically getting towards the end of their performance."
ARM intends its 32bit SC000 security processor to compete with 8 and 16bit devices. MPU in the diagram refers to the memory protection unit, a block which allows applications to run side-by-side with little chance of one being hacked from the other.