Cypress PSoC 64 Microcontrollers Target Secure IoT Applications

If you are like me, you probably don’t remember, but back in 2017 Arm announced the Platform Security Architecture (PSA) that defines a set of requirements to secure low cost Internet of Things devices. There’s now at least one PSA compliant microcontroller, as Cypress Semiconductor introduced their PSoC 64 Secure MCU at Embedded World 2019 last month.

The press release claims that PSoC 64 MCU family is one of “the first Arm Cortex-M processors to be certified as Level 1 compliant within the Arm Platform Security Architecture (PSA) certification scheme, PSA Certified, utilizing a secure Trusted Firmware-M (TF-M) implementation integrated into the Arm Mbed OS open-source embedded operating system”.

PSoC 64 secure MCU key features and specifications:

Arm Cortex-M4F core with 22µA/MHz active power consumption
Optional Arm Cortex-M0+ core with 15µA/MHz power consumption
System Memory – 160KB to 1MB SRAM
Storage – 512KB to 2MB flash
Security
- HW Cryptography – Symmetric: AES, 3DES; Asymmetric: RSA, ECC; Hashing: SHA-256, SHA-512;True Random Number Generator (TRNG)
- Secure boot
- Isolated root-of-trust with true attestation and provisioning services
- Optional TLS support
Optional FOTA (Firmware Over-the-Air) updates support
Optional integrated cloud support

Cypress PSoC 64 Secure Microcontrollers Family — Click to Enlarge

There are three variants of PSoC 64 processors depending on the target application:

PSoC 64 Secure Boot for applications requiring a pre-configured device root of trust
PSoC 64 Standard for secure cloud connectivity that works out of the box
PSoC 64 Premium with Standard model features, but a Cortex-M0+ core allowing the developer to add his/her own trusted applications.

Beside hardware based security implemented in the firmware, Cypress Semiconductor also provides an IoT Platform with RTOS, WiFi, Bluetooth (Classic/LE/Mesh), MQTT, TLS, a Cloud application agent, a data collection agent, and more, which are all available from the company’s ModusToolbox Software Environment.

PSoC 64 Smart Door Lock — Example Use Case: Smart Door Lock Connecting to Cloud over TLS, and Mobile Device over BLE

PSoC 64 secure MCUs can interface with popular cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Arm Pelion and Alibaba.

Cypress’ PSoC 64 Secure MCUs with SecureBoot will be sampling in Q1 2019, with other variations planned for Q2 2019. You may find a few more details in PSoC 6 product page, as well as in a brochure specific to PSoC 64 microcontrollers.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.