Software Update from Avnet Showcases Ease of Implementing Data Security

Avnet, Inc and Microsemi Corporation announced that Avnet has updated its design software on the SmartFusion2 KickStart Development Kit to offer a data security demonstration. The kit, sold exclusively through Avnet, is an entry-level development platform designed to facilitate rapid prototyping using Microsemi’s SmartFusion2 system-on-chip (SoC) field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs).

The SmartFusion2 KickStart Development Kit’s board features Microsemi’s low-power, single event upset (SEU)-immune SmartFusion2 SoC FPGA, a secure and integrated programmable device with 10,000 logic elements and a 166 MHz ARM® Cortex®-M3 processor. The kit is ideal for customers utilizing Microsemi’s SmartFusion2 in Internet of Things (IoT), industrial networked equipment, medical networked products and other applications that require the highest levels of data communications security. A Windows app is used to control and view the steps to establish a secure Bluetooth Low Energy connection between a SmartFusion2 “server” and an Android “client.” The SmartFusion2 KickStart Development Kit is one of three Avnet-designed solutions named by EDN magazine as the top 100 Hot Products of 2015.

“The data security reference design for the KickStart Kit provides an easy-to-follow implementation of basic security building blocks,” said Stefan Rousseau, senior technical marketing engineer for Avnet. “Designers who are new to design for security should be able to understand and re-use the given examples, while others who are already familiar with these concepts will see how the secure elements and architecture of the SmartFusion2 SoC are used for securing the system.”

According to the Aberdeen group, by the year 2020 approximately 50 billion machines will be connected. Not only do these machines need to be secure, but they need to be secured at the device, design and system levels. The versatile SmartFusion2 KickStart Kit offers engineers the much-needed low-power, high-security and reliability required to protect data and valuable application intellectual property in today’s IoT-enabled devices.

“Our newly available demonstrations of the SmartFusion2 KickStart Development Kit not only showcase its excellent data security capabilities, but they also demonstrate the feature rich architecture of the SmartFusion2,” said Ted Marena, director of SoC/FPGA marketing at Microsemi. “Customers can easily implement a broad range of applications and secured data communication by leveraging this unique, low-cost development platform and software.”

Features of the SmartFusion2 KickStart Development Kit data security demonstration include:

· Basic terminology for key usage and management · Using certificates and public key infrastructure · Establishing a secure channel using the Diffie-Hellman key agreement · Using symmetric keys once authentication has completed