ETAS and Rambus offer integrated software and hardware security solution for automotive silicon designs

Over the last decade, the automotive industry has increasingly relied on Hardware Security Modules (HSM) as the trusted hardware platform for secure tamper-resistant cryptographic operations and key management. HSMs offer various security services and capabilities, including secure communication channels, data integrity protection, message authentication, secure boot processes, and system security policies. HSMs securely execute authenticated user applications with security mechanisms like tamper detection and protection, secure storage and handling of keys and security assets, and resistance to side-channel attacks. Access to cryptographic accelerator modules, keys, memory ranges, I/O, and other resources is enforced by hardware. Critical operations like encryption, signing, authenticating, key generation, derivation, and storage are performed in hardware without external software access. 

Originally, HSMs were offered as standalone secure element chips or HSM-embedded automotive microcontrollers connected to host system buses. However, the HSM landscape has evolved to meet modern automotive systems' increased complexity, stricter security requirements, and performance demands. Today, HSMs are siloed hardware blocks (IP) instantiated in automotive SoC ICs. In some SoCs, there are multiple HSM IP blocks to fulfill a variety of security use cases and demands.  

This new trend in HSMs reflects the growing importance of cybersecurity in highly connected vehicles, and at the same time, it supports the need for pre-integrated, pre-validated, pre-certified, scalable solutions to help OEMs meet safety and security compliance. Synthesizable automotive-grade HSM silicon IP has emerged as a critical strategy for efficient and effective SoC development.

As with any silicon IP design, the synthesizable automotive-grade HSM IP provides greater flexibility for customization to meet specific performance requirements for critical use cases. The technology-agnostic nature of the HSM silicon IP offers a cost-effective and scalable solution for securing multiple SoCs. Safety and security certified HSM IP enhances the overall reliability and quality of the SoC, minimizing the risk of design and cybersecurity flaws, while ensuring faster compliance at the chip level.