Microchip Technology (Nasdaq: MCHP) is introducing its CEC1736 TrustFLEX devices to make embedded security solutions more accessible. These devices are part of the CEC1736 Trust Shield family, which is a microcontroller-based platform root of trust solution designed to enhance cyber resiliency in various applications such as data centers, telecom, networking, embedded computing, and industrial systems.

The TrustFLEX devices come partially configured and provisioned with Microchip-signed Soteria-G3 firmware. This pre-configuration reduces the development time required to integrate the platform root of trust. Additionally, these devices facilitate the fast-tracking of cryptographic asset provisioning and signed firmware image deployment, simplifying the secure manufacturing process in compliance with standards set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Open Compute Project (OCP).

Specifically tailored to meet NIST 800-193 platform resiliency guidelines and OCP requirements, the CEC1736 TrustFLEX devices offer support for essential security features necessary for establishing a hardware root of trust across diverse markets. The Trust Platform Design Suite tool enables customers to customize platform-specific configuration settings, including unique credentials, to accommodate any application, host processor, or System-on-Chip (SoC) that boots from an external SPI Flash device, extending the root of trust in the system.

Microchip's corporate vice president of secure computing group, Nuri Dagdeviren, emphasizes the company's commitment to simplifying secure provisioning from design to deployment for devices and platforms of all sizes. The pre-configured CEC1736 TrustFLEX family lowers the barriers to implementing a platform root of trust, facilitating faster prototyping and speeding up time to market.

The CEC1736 TrustFLEX devices incorporate modern firmware security features such as SPI bus monitoring, secure boot, component attestation, and lifecycle management. These features ensure the protection of both the pre-boot and real-time environments from physical and remote threats.

The CEC1736 controllers are highly configurable, mixed-signal devices with advanced I/O capabilities. They integrate a 32-bit 96 MHz Arm Cortex-M4 processor core with closely coupled memory, offering efficient code execution and data access.

Microchip provides a comprehensive tool ecosystem to support development with the CEC1736 TrustFLEX devices. The Trust Platform Design Suite includes the CEC1736 TrustFLEX Configurator, which provides a visual interface for selecting, configuring, and generating provisioning packages for development, prototyping, and production. The CEC1736 development board features a socket that simplifies evaluation and development processes.