Set-top boxes (STBs) were initially secured by Conditional Access System (CAS) smart cards. However, this approach is no longer effective. Smart cards cannot prevent unauthorized access to premium 4K and UHD content, as they are not designed to protect the interface between the card and box, or the STB SoC itself. This is one of the reasons why cardless CAS set-top boxes, equipped with a hardware-based root-of-trust, are increasing in popularity amongst major operators such as Dish TV India. A hardware root-of-trust, provided by platforms such as Rambus’ CryptoMedia, offers operators robust security protection with an integrated security core that acts to effectively decrease potential attack vectors. Moreover, eliminating the smart card significantly reduces cost, for both short-term BOM and long-term liability in the form of frequent card swaps. It should be noted that not all hardware security cores are created equal. One important consideration is that any hardware security core should be compatible with multiple leading CAS and DRM systems. This ensures operators are not locked into a single vendor for the entire lifetime of a set-top box. Moreover, the ability to function alongside numerous CAS and DRM systems can potentially enable new ways of securely distributing pay content, offering tangible benefits to both DTH operators and OTT distributors. For example, operators can provide their subscribers OTT content alongside broadcast content on the same set-top box, using the same robust hardware security, while maintaining cryptographic isolation between the different systems.
Papers
Lensless Smart Sensor POD 2.0 Evaluation Kit
Charting a New Course for Semiconductors
After half a century of sustained expansion and innovation, semiconductor sales and profits are noticeably slowing. This can be attributed to a number of factors, including the rising cost of designing and manufacturing new chips. Although still at a relatively nascent stage, open-source hardware has already managed to positively disrupt the semiconductor industry by encouraging innovation, reducing development costs and accelerating time to market. Reprogrammable chips can potentially replace a one-size fits all strategy for a ‘Features as a Service’ (FaaS) approach. As such, reprogrammable silicon will undoubtedly play a major part in building the IoT, which spans a broad range of applications and environments with varying requirements. A Features as a Service (FaaS) framework will allow companies to dynamically enable features at multiple points in the semiconductor value chain, ranging from manufacturing to in-field use.
Analysis, Modeling and Characterization of Multi-Protocol High-Speed Serial Links
Improved analysis, modeling, characterization and correlation methods of multi-protocol high-speed transceivers that utilize T-coil to enhance the transmitter and receiver bandwidth, transmitter FIR filters and receiver CTLE and DFE equalizers is presented. The key circuit blocks are measured and modeled using IBIS-AMI models and the overall system performance including the eye diagrams, BER curves are well correlated to on-die measurements. The paper discuss the procedure taken to model, measure, and verify the high-speed transceivers meet the standard specifications such as return loss, jitter tolerance, BER and convergence of the adaptation equalizers and CDR to optimize the margins for various channels.
CryptoMedia Security Platform Solution Overview
Rambus Smart Data Acceleration Whitepaper
As an industry, if real progress is to be made towards the level of computing that the future mandates, then the way computing problems are attacked must change. The von Neumann execution model has and will continue to serve us well, but additional techniques must be brought to bear.
The next logical focus area is data—how it is accessed, and how it is transformed into real information—that leads to newer solutions. No longer can all of memory simply continue to be an element that holds the program commands and data during execution. Memory must become an active part of the solution, rather than a necessary evil.
The first step in what is likely to be a protracted journey is to provide a vehicle that allows it to be exploited independently of the CPU. Rambus is doing just that through the creation of their Smart Data Acceleration (SDA) Research Program.