VLSI Technology Announces Design Win with Hewlett-Packard for High-Speed Ciphering Engine

Strategic Insights -

VLSI Technology, Inc., a leading manufacturer of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), has announced a design win with Hewlett-Packard Company for the VLSI VMS110 coprocessor, a high-speed ciphering engine supporting the industry standard Data Encryption Standard (DES) algorithm. The VMS110 has been designed to become a data security standard in virtually any type of cable modem application, supporting both single DES ECB and CBC encryption/decryption and is NIST certified. The VMS110 uses a simple 16-bit data bus and is controlled by programmable registers allowing easy system integration for cable modem applications and other high-speed data streams.

Key Takeaways:

  • The VMS110 coprocessor is a high-speed ciphering engine designed to support the industry standard Data Encryption Standard (DES) algorithm, targeting cable modem applications.
  • The VMS110 has been designed to become a data security standard in virtually any type of cable modem application, supporting both single DES ECB and CBC encryption/decryption.
  • The VMS110 uses a simple 16-bit data bus and is controlled by programmable registers, allowing easy system integration for cable modem applications.
  • VLSI Technology has developed the VMS110 coprocessor to meet the needs of Hewlett-Packard Company for a highly secure cable modem.
  • The VMS110 supports a bypass mode, full DES-compliance (as specified by Federal Information Processing Standards Publication, FIPS PUB 46-2), and a key cache which consists of four 56-bit write-only registers.
  • The VMS110 has a digital non-deterministic randomizer (patent pending) for Initialization Vector (IV), key generation, and random number seeding, generating random bits at greater than 1 Mbit/second.

Statistics:

  • Prices in the U.S. for the VMS110 DES coprocessor are $16 in 10,000 unit quantities.
  • International pricing will vary, and shipments are subject to export restrictions.
  • Samples are available now with production volumes expected in March 1996.
  • VLSI Technology has 1994 revenues of $587 million and has approximately 2,700 employees worldwide.
  • Hewlett-Packard Company has 99,900 employees and had revenues of $25 billion in its 1994 fiscal year.
  • The VMS110 has a throughput rate of up to 284 Mbits/second and supports clock rates up to 40 MHz.

Sources:

  • VLSI Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: VLSI) press release dated November 6, 1995.
  • Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HWP) press release dated November 6, 1995.
  • Federal Information Processing Standards Publication, FIPS PUB 46-2.