About encryption chips

I am engaged in encryption chips. Because I pay attention to encryption chips, I have some ideas about encryption chips. Welcome all experts and colleagues to come in and criticize.

There is a metaphor to describe encryption chips, which is really appropriate. The encryption chip is like a lock. Our house, whether it is gorgeous or simple, needs to be equipped with a lock. Prevent others from entering at will. Even if there is nothing valuable in my house, I don’t like anyone to come in and turn it into a public place. When it comes to locks, everyone knows that if we find a master to open the lock, basically all the locks on the market can be opened. Of course, the master will also say that some locks are easy to open, some locks are difficult to open, and the charges may be different. So it is the same for encryption chips. Some can be cracked easily, while some require more time and effort to crack.

When it comes to cracking, there are a lot of public quotations on the market. It’s a pity that these "masters of unlocking" are not bound by the law. As long as the price is right, I will find a way to crack the lock for you. (I am wondering what the cracking price of lightning is now, and how many people are trying to crack it) I don't know if this phenomenon is unique to China. I don't think so. It's the same all over the world. As long as there is profit, there will always be some people who will do whatever it takes to get it. It's just that we are exposed to this environment every day. But we have to say that the current domestic legal provisions on copyright protection cannot effectively protect the rights and interests of many developers. Of course, for the general public, if cracking brings me benefits, such as cracking IOS and software, we will call the cracker a master. If the cracking harms my interests, we call him a bad guy. That's it.

At this point, many people think that installing an encryption chip is meaningless. Of course not, otherwise why would Apple put an encryption chip in the lightning data cable and sell it for 149 RMB. Although there are cracked ones on the market now (it cannot be guaranteed to be perfect), they also sell for dozens of dollars. You can imagine, if Apple doesn't do this, how much would a data cable cost now? Is it necessary to bring an encryption chip? Let's take another simple example. When a new product is just launched on the market, it does not have an encryption chip. Anyone can copy it. There may be hundreds or thousands of copycats, and the market will soon be flooded with the same products. Then your product can only compete on price, and the market price of the product will only be infinitely close to the manufacturing cost of the product. For the investment in the development process, developers are definitely unwilling to accept it.
If it is brought with an encryption chip, after having an encryption chip, first of all, after my product is promoted to the market, not just anyone can take it and copy it. Then this "lock" at least keeps most people with bad intentions out of the "door". Of course, if the product has a good market, there will definitely be some people who will find a way to remove the "lock" and break into the "door". But the cracking process will also take a certain amount of time and cost. In this way, first of all, the new product has a longer monopoly on the market, and perhaps there will be copied products on the market, and newer products will be launched. Secondly, the copiers have paid a price for cracking, and there are few market competitors, so the market price of the product can still be maintained at a level that can obtain good returns. So the benefits of using encryption chips are still obvious.

Let's talk about encryption chips. The market for encryption chips seems to be quite hot now. In the past two months, there were only one or two companies that searched for encryption chips on Baidu. Now, there are many companies that have promoted encryption chips (my company is not included). There are two main types of encryption chips: one is an I2C memory with an addition function, and the other is to implant an MCU in the chip to perform encryption operations. I see many people belittling the former because of the promotion of the latter. But as mentioned earlier, as long as it is a "lock", it can be cracked, but the time and cost are different. Therefore, the choice of encryption chips still depends on the needs, the performance and cost of the developed products, the market strategy and product cycle, etc. The encryption chip I2C memory with encryption function has a small package, low power consumption, low price, and is more flexible in ordering and use (for example, the signature on the chip can be changed). In addition, the encryption algorithm that can be configured by the customer is still quite reliable. The latter has higher encryption performance, but at the same time it brings problems such as large package, high power consumption and high price. Therefore, choosing an encryption chip is just like choosing a lock, just choose the right one. You don't need a top-level computer to surf the Internet!

The above are some of my thoughts since I started making encryption chips. Everyone is welcome to discuss.