NXP Adds the Tiny EdgeLock A30 to Its Discrete Hardware Authenticator Portfolio
Compact chip, smaller than a grain of rice, includes hardware SHA, AES, ECDSA, and ECDH engines, an RNG, and 16kB of NVM.
NXP Semiconductors has announced a new secure authenticator, the EdgeLock A30, which it hopes will make it easier to develop standards-compliant Internet of Things (IoT) and industrial systems — complete with Common Criteria EAL6+ certification.
"Secure authentication helps to ensure brand protection, consumer safety, and product traceability, fostering trust and shielding devices from physical damage," says NXP's Alasdair Ross in support of the company's new part. "Smaller than a grain of rice, the EdgeLock A30 is designed to fit into even the smallest of devices. It supports multiple authentication use cases, making it easier for developers to support a variety of devices and accessories with a single solution, including device to device, cloud to device, counterfeit protection, and storage or protection of device identity."
The EdgeLock A30 is the latest in the company's EdgeLock security chip family, and is designed to be used with "standard" microcontrollers and microprocessors including NXP's MCX and i.MX chips. Depending on model, the chip includes up to 16kB of non-volatile memory, supports EdgeLock 2GO for certificate generation and delivery, and includes hardware engines for SHA-256/384 HMAC and HKDF, AES-128/256 in ECB, CBC, CMAN, CCM, and GCM modes, ECDSA and ECDH over NIST-P256 and Brainpool P245r1, and a NIST SP800-90B random number generator (RNG).
The chip talks to its host over an I2C connection at 100kHz, 400kHz, or 1MHz, NXP has confirmed, and includes two configurable general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins. It also comes with Common Criteria EAL 6+ AVA_VAN.5 certification — and, the company says, meets the requirements of the European Union's Batteries Regulation 2023/1542, which mandates the inclusion of a "Digital Product Passport" by 2027.
More information is available on the NXP website; the company has begun selling the parts at $0.77 per chip in 1,000-unit tray quantities — though at the time of writing was showing a 10,000-unit minimum order quantity (MOQ).
