Chip-level security and Arm TrustZone technology complement
Low power consumption and moisture resistance combined with capacitive touch MCU

Microchip Technology announced the launch of new SAM L10 and SAM L11 MCU families to address increasingly stringent security requirements.

The new MCU families are based on Arm® Cortex®-M23 cores. The SAM L11 adopts Arm TrustZone® technology from Armv8-M, which is a programmable environment capable of hardware isolation of certified libraries, IP, and application code. Through TrustZone technology, Microchip realizes robust security including chip-level tamper detection, secure boot, and secure key storage functions, protecting customer applications from both remote and physical attacks.

Both MCU families achieve industry-leading low power consumption and implement capacitive touch functionality with the highest water resistance and noise immunity. The SAM L10 achieved a ULPMark™ score of 405 in power consumption benchmark testing, which is over 200 percent better than competing products certified by EEMBC® (Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium). Microchip uses proprietary picoPower® technology to deliver the industry's lowest power consumption in active mode and all sleep modes.
Rod Drake, vice president of Microchip's MCU32 business unit, stated, "Low power consumption and high security are essential requirements for most IoT endpoint customers. However, while IoT node growth is accelerating rapidly, security is not keeping pace. The SAM L11 provides exactly those features that customers must plan for in the early stages of development to ensure security." He added, "This is precisely what the SAM L11 delivers."

In addition to TrustZone technology, the SAM L11 features an on-board cryptographic module as a security function. This module supports AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), GCM (Galois Counter Mode), and SHA (Secure Hash Algorithm).

Additionally, secure boot with built-in tamper detection and secure key storage establish a hardware RoT (Root of Trust), and a secure bootloader function supporting safe firmware upgrades is also provided.

Microchip cooperates with Trustonic, a member of its Security Design Partner Program, to provide a comprehensive security solution framework.

Through this framework, security implementation can be simplified and customers can bring final products to market more quickly. Microchip also collaborates with Secure Thingz and Data I/O Corporation to provide security provisioning services to SAM L11 customers with validated security frameworks.

Both MCU families provide Microchip's latest generation PTC (Peripheral Touch Controller) for capacitive touch functionality. This enables developers to easily add touch interfaces, reduce power consumption, and achieve extremely smooth and efficient user experience even in wet and noisy environments.

When utilizing touch interfaces, the solution can be appropriately used in various applications such as automotive, consumer appliances, medical, and consumer HMI (Human Machine Interface) fields.