Arm has announced the Arm SDK-700 System Design Kit, a new IoT solution that supports rapid and secure SoC design and launch. Built on Platform Security Architecture (PSA) principles, the solution provides the foundation for a secure SoC framework for Microsoft Azure Sphere.

PSA is built on four core principles consisting of device identity, a trusted boot process, secure OTA updates, and certificate-based authentication, and has already gained significant momentum with the support of several industry leaders. However, SoC design remains complex, and rectifying this could take years. This is a problem that hinders the growth of IoT, which is achievable only when designers can launch products quickly and securely.

Arm announced a new IoT solution to accelerate the development of secure SoCs built on PSA principles. The Arm SDK-700 System Design Kit is a comprehensive SoC system framework that enables the design of secure SoCs for various IoT nodes, gateways, and embedded applications. Through this, partners have been able to build secure devices in a standard software development environment and gain an advantage in the new IoT application market by showcasing diverse and differentiated businesses.

Arm announced at the 'RSA Conference 2018,' the world's largest information security event, that the SDK-700 provides the foundation for a secure SoC framework for Microsoft Azure Sphere. The flexibility of this solution enables Arm and Microsoft to collaborate closely to meet the security requirements of Azure Sphere. Consequently, SoC designers can be confident that their designs comply with Microsoft's guidelines, allowing them to leverage the SDK-700 to launch Azure Sphere SoCs more quickly and focus more on differentiation strategies.

Equipping IoT end nodes with more powerful processors is becoming a prerequisite for many applications. Fields such as voice assistants, connected cameras, and computer vision are continuously growing, but new use cases, including these, all require performance capable of easily integrating media processing and handling heavy workloads. The SDK-700 provides a flexible computing architecture by integrating the high performance of the Cortex-A with the high efficiency and real-time processing capabilities of the Cortex-M processor. Cortex-A processors enable rich development environments such as Azure Sphere OS and Linux OS.

Paul Williamson, Vice President and General Manager of Arm’s IoT Device IP Business Unit, stated, “To connect one trillion connected devices, the principle that security is no longer an option or an add-on in IoT SoC and system design must be applied across every part of the value chain. To realize this, the industry must move faster and build greater trust.” He added, “SDK-700 presents another way for the industry to move more agilely in a proven manner when designing embedded systems.” He further noted, “Building high trust can be achieved through efforts by PSA, Azure Sphere, and ultimately more leading companies to adhere to a digital society contract that protects products throughout the design lifecycle.”