NXP strengthens SmartMX2 security chips with PUF anti-cloning technology

SINGAPORE: NXP Semiconductors N.V announced that it will be the first company to bring to market smartcard and embedded secure element chips that integrate Intrinsic-ID’s industry-leading PUF (Physically Unclonable Function) technology.

PUFs are an innovative way of safeguarding individual chips from data theft by using the unique ‘fingerprint’ inherent in every semiconductor device to protect its encryption key, making it very hard to clone and thus reverse-engineer and compromise security microcontrollers.

Global trends such as urbanization, digitization of governmental documents, improved banking security and growing NFC adoption means that security chips are being adopted more than ever to protect user data, credentials and finances. In parallel, more sophisticated attacks have been developed that attempt to undermine security chip functionality and steal this information.

By integrating Intrinsic ID’s PUF technology into its secure microcontroller SmartMX2, NXP significantly enhances the chip’s security architecture and strengthens applications such as NFC-enabled mobile payment, electronic ticketing, and eGovernment and cyber security services.

“Concerns about smartcard security have increased with the wide availability of sophisticated tools and invasive techniques to discover the secrets and keys that traditionally protect devices from counterfeiting, tampering and theft-of-data,” said Pim Tuyls, CEO at Intrinsic-ID. “We believe that our PUF technology is ideally suited to helping to overcome this problem, particularly when combined with NXP’s industry-leading secure IC solutions.”

“The use of smartcard and smartcard-type functionality in NFC-enabled phones is becoming increasingly popular around the world. But for many users, security doubts still linger - providing the highest level of security for eID cards, banking cards or NFC smart phones is thus essential,” said Ruediger Stroh, EVP and GM, Identification business with NXP Semiconductors.

“Adding PUF technology to SmartMX2 chips helps to alleviate user doubts as we bring more security and trust to smart life solutions and provide our customers with a key competitive edge. As such, we’re very happy to have entered into this contract with Intrinsic-ID, the undisputed leader in PUF.”