The latest ORIGA (ORIGinal product Authentication and brand protection solution), the SLE95050 family of chips, designed by Infineon Technologies Singapore's R&D team, is said to be the world's first chip to use asymmetric authentication featuring elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) and an integrated temperature sensor, to enable battery and electronics manufacturers to detect unauthorized accessories and after-market replacements.
The innovation
allows OEMs to combat clones of their products and effectively address
the proliferation of unauthorized/non-original accessories and
peripherals that impact the revenues of companies, as well as prevent
corrosion of their brands and image due to product recalls. The ORIGA's
counterfeit detection feature assures that manufacturers' products,
such as printer cartridges, networking equipment, earphones, speakers,
medical disposables, mobile phones, docking stations and chargers, meet
user requirements.
According to the design team, the biggest technical challenge was getting the authentication chip with integrated ECC engine, and a high performance ADC, off the starting block within the shortest possible time. The architecture was conceptualized and realized into functional silicon by drawing from a strong knowledge of authentication systems, and by accessing Infineon's vast IP portfolios and technologies, according to Chen Kim Chin, Infineon Singapore's head of R&D for ASIC Design Solutions.
The chip allows customers to design the authentication, temperature monitoring and personalization features into their applications using the ORIGA evaluation kits to configure the platform. Users can perform a number of actions including unique ID searches and authentication, reading the register ADC, and storing and reading data.
Designed to incorporate ECC, the ORIGA employs an effective and unique asymmetrical public/private key cryptography method with which two different keys for encryption and decryption are used. Since the private key is protected and stored in the hardware environment, better security is accomplished compared with symmetric cryptography in which the same key is used for encryption and decryption; the whole system is compromised if this key is hacked.
"System implementation is simple," said Chen. "The host device (eg, cell phone, printer, or camera) just requires the authentication software that communicates with the ORIGA in the accessory (eg, battery, ink cartridge) via Infineon's proprietary single-wire interface (SWI)."
Communication with the camera or other host can be done using just the battery's standard T line through Infineon's SWI. This enables authentication capability to be added while maintaining the current form of battery, without needing to provide a new terminal for authentication. Moreover, the power supply for the ORIGA SLE95050 family can come from either the battery or host side. Costs are therefore reduced since any costly master IC in the host-side device can now be replaced by the host-side software without any compromise to security.
"The authentication and other communications like temperature readout and non-volatile memory (NVM) read/write are performed via the SWI, which uses the same single line for communication and powering the device," added Chen. At all times, end-to-end system integrity is assured as the level of protection, in terms of robustness, is enhanced with the utilization of ECC.
Temperature sensing and lifespan management features add extra layers of safety for applications. OEMs also can better address existing and emerging safety regulations to reduce the risks associated with overheated batteries. The ORIGA SLE95050 family offers a version with an integrated temperature sensor that further improves the safety level of batteries for electronic devices.
by Adeline Ong
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