More secure and efficient i.MX processors for industrial and IoT edge

At Embedded World 2021, NXP unveiled its advanced i.MX 9 applications processors with improved performance in security, energy efficiency and scalability for the industrial and IoT edge. The update to its portfolio enhances edge processor security by integrating the EdgeLock Secure Enclave, an independent, self-managed security subsystem on a chip that simplifies the deployment of cutting-edge security technologies.

In an interview with EEWeb, Gowri Chindalore, head of NXP edge processing business and technology strategy, Amanda McGregor, NXP product management director, and Mohit Arora, senior architect for edge processing, highlighted the expansion of the EdgeVerse portfolio and its cross-border applications, and maximized efficiency through the Energy Flex architecture.

“Greener, safer, more secure and more efficient are the themes of the new edge processing portfolio,” Chindalore said.

He added: “For end devices at the edge, it’s very important to be energy efficient so that we can shut down processors when they’re not being used and only turn on the areas that need to be on, like some kind of real-time sensing or a slower engine. So creating architectures that allow us to selectively turn on and off parts of the SoC to create a broad, optimized energy system is very critical for us and has become one of our main guiding principles.”

Energy Flex Block Diagram

i.MX Edge Processing Solutions

NXP highlights that the next evolution of edge technology will be driven by intelligence distributed across billions of devices, which will be important for processing and energy efficiency. The Microsoft Azure Sphere-certified i.MX 8ULP and i.MX 8ULP-CS (Cloud Security) series, as well as the next-generation i.MX 9 series, are designed to pave the way for new solutions with EdgeLock security and Energy Flex architecture, which can improve security and energy efficiency.

The EdgeLock secure enclave is a pre-configured security subsystem that simplifies the implementation of complex security technologies and helps designers avoid costly mistakes. It enhances edge device protection by autonomously managing key security functions such as root of trust, runtime attestation, trust setup, secure boot, key management, and cryptographic services, while also simplifying the path to industry-standard security certifications.

“When we talk about security, we’re talking about just random number generators, encryption, and some kind of key management. Secure edge lockdown is kind of like aggregating all the security-related functions into some security subsystem, but more importantly, running a dedicated security core with very tight controls,” Arora said.

EdgeLock Secure Enclave will be a standard feature built into i.MX 8ULP and i.MX 8ULP-CS with Azure Sphere, and i.MX 9 applications processors.

“Security is not easy, so the improvements we are implementing make the process very simple,” Chindalore said.

NXP has collaborated with Microsoft to bring security to customers through the Azure Sphere chip-to-cloud holistic security strategy in the i.MX 8ULP-CS (Cloud Security) application processor series. The i.MX 8ULP-CS combines Microsoft Pluto enabled in the EdgeLock secure zone for a variety of IoT and industrial applications. In addition to secure hardware, Azure Sphere also includes the secure Azure Sphere OS, a cloud-based Azure Sphere security service. Specific products in the i.MX 9 series will also enable Azure Sphere chip-to-cloud security.

Energy Flex is designed to extend battery life and reduce power consumption in portable or connected devices. McGregor pointed out that there are many strict regulations in various industrial applications that require improved energy efficiency. In the i.MX 8ULP and i.MX 8ULP-CS series, the Energy Flex architecture improves energy efficiency by 75% over previous versions through a unique combination of heterogeneous domain processing, design technology and 28nm FD-SOI process technology.

NXP's i.MX 9 series is based on the market-proven i.MX 6 and i.MX 8 series application processors, launching a new generation of scalable processors, and integrating high-performance application cores with independent real-time domains of MCUs, Energy Flex architecture, the latest security technology with EdgeLock security area and dedicated multi-sensor data processing engines (graphics, images, display, audio and voice). The i.MX 9 series integrates hardware neural processing units throughout the series to accelerate machine learning applications.

Select i.MX 9 applications processors will also support a wide range of advanced machine learning, including:

- Enables multi-object recognition and non-spoofable multi-face recognition in milliseconds of inference time.

-Speech system that can recognize natural language and accents.

-Gesture recognition analysis

-Anomaly detection for industrial predictive maintenance and integrated sensors in smart homes and numerous other industrial and IoT applications.