Atmel Announces TwinAVR Microcontrollers (MCUs), the Industry’s First Dual-Core Secure Microcontrollers

Atmel’s TwinAVR™ microcontrollers (MCUs) (AT90SDC100 and AT90SDC104) are the industry’s first dual-core secure microcontrollers targeting demanding smart card applications such as the growing PayTV conditional access market. Atmel’s TwinAVR™ microcontrollers (MCUs) offer two independent cores with central processing unit (CPU), memory and peripherals on a single chip, unlike current secure MCUs on the market today that offer a single core. The Master Core is built around Atmel’s 8-/16–bit RISC secureAVR®, with 128K ROM, 36K EEPROM and 6K RAM. The Secure Core is built around Atmel’s 8-/16–bit RISC secureAVR®, with 64K ROM, 18K EEPROM, 6K RAM, AdvXTM Crypto Processor, TDES, AES & AIS31 TRNG. This innovative dual core architecture simplifies the implementation of the RED/BLACK concept of segregation between highly sensitive plaintext data (RED) and encrypted data (BLACK), leading to an easier and faster certification…

TwinAVR
(Picture: Atmel)

Press Release:

Atmel Launches AT90SDC100/104 Dual-Core Secure Microcontrollers For Growing PayTV Market

Atmel TwinAVRTM Provides Unmatched Security and Performance On a Single Chip for Smart Card Applications in the High-security Market

Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML), a leader in microcontroller-based solutions, announced the industry’s first dual-core secure microcontrollers targeting demanding smart card applications such as the growing PayTV conditional access market.

Atmel’s TwinAVR™ microcontrollers (MCUs) offer two independent cores with central processing unit (CPU), memory and peripherals on a single chip, unlike current secure MCUs on the market today that offer a single core.

The Master Core is built around Atmel’s 8-/16–bit RISC secureAVR®, with 128K ROM, 36K EEPROM and 6K RAM. The Secure Core is built around Atmel’s 8-/16–bit RISC secureAVR®, with 64K ROM, 18K EEPROM, 6K RAM, AdvXTM Crypto Processor, TDES, AES & AIS31 TRNG. This innovative dual core architecture simplifies the implementation of the RED/BLACK concept of segregation between highly sensitive plaintext data (RED) and encrypted data (BLACK), leading to an easier and faster certification.

“As the PayTV conditional access market continues to grow and become more complex, smart card developers demand higher performance and storage capacity while maintaining the highest level of security,” said Eric Le Cocquen, Atmel’s marketing manager for PayTV products. “Atmel’s TwinAVR addresses all these issues. Segregation of the RED and BLACK domains traditionally relies on hardware firewalls and a lot of software. The TwinAVR goes one step beyond by offering, on the same chip, a master core to implement the BLACK domain and a secure core to implement the RED domain, thus providing an indisputable segregation between the two domains. The two cores also increase the overall system performance considerably, equaling a 32-bit MCU, while the data flash interface enables large storage capacities. This new family offers a complete solution for smart card developers in the PayTV market.”

Atmel’s TwinAVR MCU features an ISO 7816-3 smart card interface and a built-in DataFlash® interface. Large amounts of data can be stored with flash die stacking to the microcontroller and by fitting both chips in a standard smart card module. This product meets Common Criteria EAL5+ security certification.

Availability and Pricing

Samples of Atmel’s AT90SDC100 standalone TwinAVR are available now. Pricing starts at $1.85 USD for quantities of 100Ku in bare die form.

Samples of Atmel’s AT90SDC104 4Mbit TwinAVR samples will be available Q1 2010. Pricing starts at $4.00 USD for quantities of 100Ku in smart card modules.

Information
More information about Atmel’s TwinAVR secure microcontroller family can be found at: http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/devices.asp?family_id=662

About Atmel
Atmel is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of capacitive touch solutions, microcontrollers, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory and radio frequency (RF) components. Leveraging one of the industry’s broadest intellectual property (IP) technology portfolios, Atmel is able to provide the electronics industry with complete system solutions focused on consumer, industrial, security, communications, computing and automotive markets.

More information about TwinAVR Microcontrollers can be found at Atmel Website