Atmel has released a high performance secure microcontroller with what it claims is the largest reprogrammable nonvolatile memory. The T89SC256C is an 8/16 bit secure microcontroller based on 80C251 enhanced architecture, software compatible with any existing 80C51-based application. Its on-chip compact flash memory of 256 KB, together with its embedded fast arithmetic crypto processor and its efficient security features, give this product all the advantages needed to develop any application where security, fast computation, short time-to-market and low cost are required, says the manufacturer.
Due to its small size (less than 25 mm2), and its very low power consumption (10 mA at 5 V-5 mA at 3 V), the device is naturally dedicated to embedded smartcard applications. Its communication interfaces (UART and SPI) also enable the cryptocontroller to support larger secure systems such as smart- card readers and set-top-boxes.
The T89SC256C offers an original 'full flash' architecture: a unique Flash memory space is provided to store data and programs. The large nonvolatile memory size of 256 KB also offers real advantages of flexibility (fast prototyping and reduction of time-to-market), and security (versus other memory technologies like ROM). The large embedded working memory (RAM: 4,5 KB) supports the use of modern programming languages. The 80C251 core is clocked by a high frequency tunable internal clock (up to 24 MHz) and offers software compatibility with any existing application developed on a standard 80C51 core, providing performance up to 15 times better at the same clock frequency, according to the manufacturer.
The T89SC256C has been designed to support a high security level. It includes several dedicated security features, such as a true random number generator, a secure memory management unit, a memory error detection and correction automatic mechanism and physical sensors. For high-speed cryptography computation capacity, a separate arithmetic crypto co-processor is provided on the chip. It supports up to 2048-bit RSA computation. A 1024 bit RSA computation with Chinese Remainder Theorem (CRT) is achieved in 90 ms.
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