Texas Instruments and ARM Accelerate Deployment of Secure Applications on Mobile Devices

Market leaders deliver a common security framework to the mobile phone industry

DALLAS, TEXAS AND CAMBRIDGE, UK – April 4, 2006 – Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) and ARM today announced a collaboration to provide a unified mobile security technology to the industry, enabling mobile security market applications and services with a standard-based, interoperable, extensible framework. As part of this effort, TI is integrating ARM® TrustZone® software and application programming interfaces (APIs) into its market-proven M-Shield™ mobile security technology framework.

Through a common adoption of the TrustZone software, handset manufacturers and developers of secure applications instantly have a standard-based programming interface to address the mobile device market. Through this collaboration, TI and ARM will enable a new level of end-user applications for mobile devices, which require robust security for mainstream acceptance. These applications include rich multimedia content like music, video, TV, eCommerce, and location-based and work-anywhere services.     

Current security applications are highly-customized solutions, and each integration task on a handset requires resource-intensive development, testing, integration and deployment time. TI’s M-Shield mobile security technology is a system-level solution, which is specifically tailored to the mobile device market and optimizes a combination of hardware and software security technologies to secure mobile handsets, providing the required level of protection demanded by service providers and consumers. M-Shield mobile security technology is the key security element of the widely-adopted OMAP™ and OMAP-Vox™ processors, which are shipping today. 

“With operators and OEMs requiring stronger, standard mobile security solutions through various initiatives, the wireless handset market is ready for ARM TrustZone technology, which provides an open, platform independent and flexible security framework,” said Lance Howarth, general manager of ARM’s Embedded Software Business. “Through our partnership with TI, our TrustZone software has served as a foundation to build a truly effective security solution aligned with industry needs.  With these kind of alignments, the wireless ecosystem benefits from a common foundation for interoperable security adopted across the industry.” 

“Lack of standardization in security offerings necessitates that protection mechanisms be tailored for individual networks and even specific handsets – an often lengthy and expensive process,” said Avner Goren, marketing director of TI’s Cellular Systems Solutions. “TI’s system-level M-Shield mobile security technology, with TrustZone software and APIs, provides an open framework for mobile security that delivers a robust and flexible application environment for handsets designed with our OMAP and OMAP-Vox processors.” 

The wireless industry needs a security environment that delivers interoperability, portability and greater development speed while significantly lowering costs for advanced security applications.  Trusted Logic, the industry leader in trusted software execution environments, was a key partner in developing the technology used within the TrustZone software. Implementing TrustZone software in M-Shield mobile security technology provides an architecture to facilitate security compliance and certification across a broad portfolio of products for requirements such as those from Open Mobile Terminal Platform, Content Management License Administrator and Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS).

“As mobile content becomes more complex and costly to produce, revenue loss due to lack of security is a principal concern for content producers,” said Dominique Bolignano, CEO, Trusted Logic. “The adoption of TrustZone software and APIs into TI’s already successful M-Shield mobile security technology results in an open and interoperable mobile security system.”

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments Incorporated provides innovative DSP and analog technologies to meet our customers’ real world signal processing requirements.  In addition to Semiconductor, the company’s businesses include Sensors & Controls, and Educational & Productivity Solutions.  TI is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has manufacturing, design or sales operations in more than 25 countries. Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TXN.  More information is located on the World Wide Web at http://www.ti.com.

About ARM

ARM designs the technology that lies at the heart of advanced digital products, from mobile, home and enterprise solutions to embedded and emerging applications. ARM’s comprehensive product offering includes 16/32-bit RISC microprocessors, data engines, 3D processors, digital libraries, embedded memories, peripherals, software and development tools, as well as analog functions and high-speed connectivity products. Combined with the company’s broad Partner community, they provide a total system solution that offers a fast, reliable path to market for leading electronics companies. More information on ARM is available at http://www.arm.com.