Actel obtains license from CRIA

SAN JOSE: Programmable logic dealer Actel Corp. has licensed technology from Cryptography Research Inc. (CRI) to improve the security of its products against differential power analysis (DPA) and other side-channel associated attacks, CRI said.

According to CRI (San Francisco), the agreement lets Actel (Mountain View, Calif.) to make use of DPA countermeasures to shield bitstream loading on Actel FPGAs, enabling Actes clients to guard their intellectual property and cryptographic keys from adversaries using power analysis and associated attacks.

Company also added that this license in addition provides an alternative for Actel clients to execute their own or licensed third-party DPA countermeasures on some Actel products without requiring the client to acquire a separate license from CRI.

Richard Newell, senior principal product architect at Actel, in a statement said "As more fielded systems entail sensitive cryptographic keys and intellectual property, safety from power analysis attacks becomes vitally significant for FPGA users concerned about protection,".

DPA is a type of attack which includes monitoring variations in the electrical power consumption of a target device, then using sophisticated statistical methods to establish cryptographic keys.

Previously, Benjamin Jun, vice president of technology at CRI, told Programmable Logic Design Line stated that company is trying to instruct FPGA users regarding the probable dangers of DPA attacks.

According to company sources, Actel plans to encourage present and future FPGA families, which include the Igloo, ProASIC 3, SmartFusion and Fusion families, with DPA countermeasure licensed offerings.