The automotive trade is present process a transformative shift in direction of the software-defined automobile (SDV), signaling a brand new period that prioritizes customer-centric mobility and presents new, data-based income alternatives throughout the automotive worth chain and ecosystem. Nonetheless, this transition additionally presents many challenges, from managing more and more complicated {hardware} (HW) and software program (SW) design and integration to assembly stringent security and safety rules for compliance and market entry. As well as, there may be additionally the fixed stress to attain quicker time to market (TTM) whereas delivering modern options that improve the client driving expertise.
In my final weblog, I emphasised the significance of strategic collaborations and modern options to beat these challenges and unlock the total potential of the software-defined automobile. In January, ETAS and Rambus introduced plans to co-develop and supply a bundled cybersecurity answer; I’m happy to now have the ability to share extra particulars about this modern answer. However earlier than diving into the answer, let’s take a second to know the present panorama that led to this collaboration.
Over the previous decade, automotive-grade SoCs have advanced dramatically, transitioning from easy microcontroller-based chips to classy microprocessor-based SoCs. This transformation has been pushed by calls for for superior computing energy to assist various functionalities and functions together with infotainment, superior driver-assistance techniques (ADAS) and automation. These highly effective SoCs have laid the inspiration for SDVs. Nonetheless, their heterogeneous, chiplet-based structure poses important challenges, complicating safety implementation and integration efforts for automotive OEMs and Tier 1 system engineering groups.
{Hardware} Safety Modules (HSMs) have emerged as a key part in automotive cybersecurity. These modules provide tamper-resistant cryptographic operations and safe key administration. Initially standalone chips or embedded inside automotive microcontrollers, HSMs have advanced into siloed HW blocks (IP) instantiated in SoCs, reflecting the trade’s elevated emphasis on cybersecurity.
To handle the challenges posed by complicated SoC architectures and stringent security and safety necessities, an built-in method to the HSM {hardware} and software program stack is important. Extra particularly, synthesizable HSM HW IP wants to come back with pre-integrated, pre-validated embedded HSM SW. This allows a technology-node agnostic, full HW IP-SW stack able to be built-in into any SoC accelerating HW growth and permitting the safety SW integration growth to begin 18-24 months earlier on the Tier 1 or OEM degree.
It was with this concept in thoughts that the collaboration between ETAS and Rambus started and the result’s a brand new built-in {hardware} safety module (iHSM). This new product household combines the Rambus RT-64x Root of Belief IP with the ETAS embedded cybersecurity software program answer, ESCRYPT CycurSoC. This answer, designed for automotive safety use circumstances, gives a pre-integrated, pre-validated SW-HW safety stack, important for establishing a safety enclave on next-generation automotive silicon designs.
Key options of the iHSM answer embrace:
- Compatibility with open and standardized interfaces like SHE+, AUTOSAR Traditional, Adaptive, POSIX, and Hypervisor to Host functions.
- CMOS node agnostic design, making certain flexibility and scalability throughout completely different SoC architectures.
- Compliance with ISO 26262 ASIL-B and ISO 21434 CSMS requirements, important for automotive security and safety.
The iHSM answer from ETAS and Rambus represents a major development within the HSM area, providing automotive stakeholders a complete and streamlined method to safety integration. By lowering implementation complexity and danger whereas accelerating time to market, this collaboration units a brand new normal for security and safety within the automotive trade. To seek out out extra, take a look at the podcast “Accelerating the SDV Time to Market” wherein I be a part of Omar Alshabibi from ETAS to debate the challenges related to realizing the imaginative and prescient of the SDV and the way the ETAS and Rambus iHSM answer might help.
