Entropic Adds CryptoFirewall To Set-top Box Chip

Entropic collaborated with Cryptography Research to port their CryptoFirewall security core technology into Entropic’s advanced line of multimedia set-top box (STB) system-on-a-chip (SoC) products.  The new chipset will protect against protect against signal theft and content piracy which is a major issue for content creators and broadcasters.

The Cryptography Research CryptoFirewall core is embedded into the chip’s silicon hardware and features silicon-based key management, a private bus for key delivery, and extra logic for specific conditional access and digital rights management (DRM) systems.

"Entropic is committed to enabling the secure distribution of premium programming via cable, satellite, broadband, IPTV, and OTT platforms," said Matt Rhodes, senior vice president, Global Marketing at Entropic.

The core is designed to protect cryptographic keys and computations within a chip even if surrounding components are compromised. The CryptoFirewall core is integrated directly into video decoding of the chip. This approach provides a robust and cost-effective solution that is complementary with hardware and software-based conditional access solutions.

As the connected home grows in popularity protecting its content and appliance is now a major concern for home owners planning to invest in the technology.  Content creators are constantly looking for ways to protect their intellectual property; try to prevent it for crossing geographical boarders without their permission and making sure that they are properly compensated for their creation.

Be embedding the CryptoFirewall core in it chips is a step in that direction. With a secure infrastructure more broadcasters will get access to more and better quality content to show to their customers.

Entropic SoC products embedded with the CRI CryptoFirewall technology include the advanced single-core STB SoC family, EN753x/EN754x/EN755x, and the powerful dual-core STB SoC line, EN757x/EN758x.