Freescale Semiconductor has worked with Inside Secure to crreate an NFC-based prepaid utility meter reference design.
The reference design, based on the Freescale Kinetis MK30 microcontroller, provides the first NFC-based, prepaid meter with the ability to securely reload energy credit balances.
Secure prepaid meters incorporate smart card security mechanisms that are typically used in the banking industry. Products based on this reference design are protected from fraud because they employ a VaultIC security module and NFC technology to safely load energy credits from a smart card or an NFC-enabled phone.
“In many parts of the world, prepaid electricity meters offer the best solution for controlling energy distribution, but providing adequate security to prevent fraud has always presented challenges,” said Christian Fleutelot, executive vice president for digital security at Inside Secure.
“Through our collaboration with Freescale, we have been able to combine our leading security and connectivity solutions to protect prepaid meters while providing a more convenient way to load energy credits and deliver valuable usage information to utilities,” said Fleutelot.
The reference design features French firm Inside Secure’s VaultIC 460 and NFC (MicroRead 3.4) chipset. It provides security functions such as mutual authentication, verification and generation of certificates, encryption/decryption and managing secure storage of cryptographic keys.
It is FIPS140-2 Level 3 ready. NFC connectivity is implemented using the MicroRead controller and Open NFC protocol stack.
The system incorporates the Freescale MK30X256 32-bit MCU (built on the ARM Cortex-M4 core), which operates up to 100MHz with 1.25 DMIPS/MHz.
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