Maxim's Industrial IoT Reference Design Speeds Development of Authenticated Data Chains

Highly secure coprocessor supports Arduino and ARM mbed platforms, assures easy prototyping

Addressing the many issues related to system security in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) installations, the MAXREFDES143 embedded security reference design from Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. provides protection against counterfeit sensor data, guaranteeing its authenticity and integrity along the entire data chain, from transducer to the cloud.

The rapid growth of IoT capabilities for industrial applications comes with legitimate concerns about data integrity, due to deliberate corruption of critical sensor data anywhere between a source and the cloud. The reference design's sophisticated architecture and components, Arduino-compatible hardware interface, and ARM mbed libraries support simplifies development of secure, uncorrupted, and authenticated sensor-to-web data. It is ideal for analog sensor node and data authentication in factory automation and industrial processing applications.

The reference design's two-stage hierarchical architecture consists of a shield that communicates to a web server, and a protected sensor node for data acquisition and authentication. The shield includes a Wi-Fi module; a DS2465 secure coprocessor for offloading SHA-256 cryptographic computation; 1-Wire and I²C interfaces; user-interface LCD, LEDs, and pushbuttons; along with alarm and logging functions. The sensor node contains a DS28E15 secure authenticator, DS7505 temperature sensor, and MAX44009 light sensor.

Key Advantages

• Fast Time-to-Market: Significantly reduces development time using the provided hardware and source code to implement an authenticated node solution and web server interface.
• Ease-of-Use: Free evaluation web server provides an immediate out-of-the box implementation for real-time data collection and storage of sensor data.
• Secure: SHA-256 coprocessor offloads data authentication task; securely stores node authentication key; each node has a unique key.
• SHA-256 authentication
• Unique secret for each node in the system
• DeepCover secure key storage
• 1-Wire/I²C/Wi-Fi interfaces
• Example source code
• mbed shield equivalent to Arduino form factor pinout
• Pmod-compatible protected sensor node
• Crypto-strong authentication
• No need for secure key storage memory on processor
• Low overhead performance for signed data between the web server and the mbed platform
• Applications:
  • Authentication of Internet of Things (IoT) device nodes
  • Data authentication at all levels from sensor node to web server
  • Protect industrial applications from counterfeiting
  • Track product lifetime with smart notifications
  • Invalidate unsafe industrial sensor nodes

Availability and Pricing

The MAXREFDES143 IoT embedded security reference design is available for $75 at Maxim's website and select franchised distributors. Hardware and firmware design files are free and available online.