STMicroelectronics Announces Wireless-Charging Secure Solution for Consumer and Automotive Qi-certified Chargers

By Tiera Oliver

Associate Editor

Embedded Computing Design

June 23, 2021

News

STMicroelectronics Announces Wireless-Charging Secure Solution for Consumer and Automotive Qi-certified Chargers

STMicroelectronics' solution is designed to protect the wireless charging of small devices and mobiles by authenticating certified Qi chargers.

STSAFE secure elements are classified with official Qi Certificates and provide authentication that leverages cryptography. The solutions identify the charger and attest to its authenticity as a Qi-certified product.

As an official Manufacturer Certification Authority Service Provider, ST has the authority to compute and to sign the official Qi Charger certificate that contains both the charger Qi-ID and maker reference. The STSAFE-A110, and STSAFE-V110 for automotive applications, are loaded at a ST factory, creating a solution that is designed to relieve the charger makers from the burden of loading the sensitive data securely. 

According to the company, the STSAFE is trusted in millions of consumables, connected devices, and secure automotive peripherals to authenticate devices to protect branded products and connected assets.

For consumer markets, STSAFE-A110 is available in 4mm x 5mm SO8N or 2mm x 3mm UFDFPN8 packages. For the automotive market, STSAFE-V110 is available in TSSOP20 package. 

The STSAFE IC family provides common functions and services to ensure end-to-end security optimized for consumables, connected devices, and automotive peripherals. It relies on security audits by independent security authorities and it is certified Common Criteria EAL5+ AVA_VAN 5. 

STSAFE-A110 and STSAFE-V110 consist of a secure operating system executed on a secure microcontroller. They offer authentication based on ECDSA asymmetric cryptography and X509 certificates containing a unique serial number. 

For Qi authentication, they are preloaded with the appropriate cryptographic key and the official Qi Certificate corresponding to the customer’s Qi charger.

The STSAFE-V110 is certified according to automotive standard AEC-Q100 grade 2. 

Users can also take advantage of a comprehensive STSAFE-A110 ecosystem to support product development and integration of the STSAFE-A110 with the application host system, including ST’s STM32* microcontroller family, and devices such as ST’s STWBC2 digital controller for wireless battery charger transmitters. 

To kickstart development, the X-NUCLEO-SAFEA1A expansion board for STM32 Nucleo boards contains an STSAFE-A110 IC ready to use with the X-CUBE-SAFEA1 software package and X-CUBE-SBSFU secure boot and software update expansion package. 

Further information can be found at www.st.com.

Tiera Oliver, Associate Editor for Embedded Computing Design, is responsible for web content edits, product news, and constructing stories. She also assists with newsletter updates as well as contributing and editing content for ECD podcasts and the ECD YouTube channel. Before working at ECD, Tiera graduated from Northern Arizona University where she received her B.S. in journalism and political science and worked as a news reporter for the university’s student led newspaper, The Lumberjack.

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