First Controller on the Market to Address Secure Digital Music Distribution (0111)

Micronas Launches World's First Secure Microcontroller

Freiburg, Germany - May 14, 2001 - Micronas today introduced Zenon, the first programmable universal controller on the market to address the latest security requirements for electronic music distribution. The highly secure microcontroller, built around an ARM7TDMI 16/32-bit-microprocessor core, supplements the very successful MASF product family of audio processors.

Currently, security issues concerning MP3 compressed music files are highly controversial in the entertainment industries. Security sensitive data up until now was stored in external memories, making security codes susceptible to reverse engineering.

"We have addressed this security issue with an on-chip flash memory, allowing Micronas to offer a higher level of data protection," said Hubertus von Janecek, marketing manager for advanced audio at Micronas. "All system resources are controlled by an on-chip System Protection Unit preventing unauthorized access to sensitive data such as device ID, PIN numbers, personal data, passwords or algorithms. Additionally, all debug interfaces can be disabled, which protects the device against sophisticated attacks. Such robust protection will also be required for PayTV, e-commerce devices, set-top boxes, health care systems and PDAs. It is impossible to reverse engineer these devices."

Zenon's 256 KByte on-chip flash memory is large enough to handle multiple digital rights management (DRMs). Zenon also incorporates the Thumb 16-bit instruction set - enabling 32-bit performance at 8/16-bit system cost while at the same time offering excellent code density for minimal memory size. An integrated, fully programmable universal serial bus (USB) interface supports additional important security aspects on the device side. The USB interface allows the IC to work together with different propriety protocols such as Liquid Audio and Intertrust, allowing virtually any DRM solution to be used for the secure exchange of music files.

The on-chip flash memory allows manufacturers of digital audio players to develop software even while the device is already in production. The hardware/software co-development gives manufacturers the flexibility to adjust their hardware in accordance with varying or new security standards in a very short time-to-market. It is even possible to change software securely in the field , p.e. by upgrading it via the internet, after products have been delivered to the customers.

The Zenon can be connected directly to external Flash memory such as SD-Card or MultiMediaCard, to mass storage devices such as hard disc drives (HDD) or to CD ROMs with adjacent cache. The two-chip Zenon/MASF solution enables audio player manufacturers to build up an MP3 recording and play back device by adding only content storage.

"A secure MP3 recorder system based on the Zenon and the MASF will cost less than US $18, which is highly competitive compared to existing solutions that use an off-the-shelf standard controller and DSP," commented von Janecek. "The 32-bit Zenon offers a much higher performance, until now unachieved levels of security and full SDMI compliance."

The Zenon works over a wide temperature range of -40 and +85° C. It is manufactured in a 0.25 µm embedded-flash CMOS process and comes in 81-pin BGA packages and 100-pin LQFPs. Samples are scheduled for June 2001 and volume production for August 2001. Depending on package and volume, the Zenon will cost about US $10.