NXP has announced that it will incorporate NTRU's software-based encryption in NXP's ARM7-based microcontrollers. The software-based product will allow you to upgrade a microcontroller in an installed application.

NXP will supply the NTRU algorithms as security libraries for its microcontrollers, providing standard features, such as encryption, decryption, digital signatures, RNG (random-number generation), and key negotiation. These features will establish confidentiality, authentication, and integrity in transactions.

The available hash algorithms include SHA (secure hashing algorithm) 1, MD5 (message digest 5) and X9.82 RNG, AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), triple-DES (Data Encryption Standard), RSA (Rivest/Shamir/Adleman), DSA (digital-signature algorithm), and Diffie-Hellman. Pricing will be on a royalty basis.

In opting for a software approach for security, an NXP spokesman explains, a key factor was flexibility and the option of upgrading or retrofitting designs with intersystem data security.

The approach has a typical flash-code overhead of approximately 12 kbytes, and it will typically employ about 10% of the computing resources of the company's LPC 2400 device.

With the software option, you can change algorithms while the system is in use, either as a result of the compromising of an algorithm or as a matter of routine. You can also manufacture your product anywhere, with no export-license conditions until you load the software onto the system.

To configure the security technology, designers license the code directly from NTRU; the technology runs only on NXP's ARM chips.

By Graham Prophet, Editor, EDN Europe - EDN