Security

Cipher suites get deprecated on a schedule no product roadmap controls. Programmable logic implements crypto in reconfigurable fabric, so a new algorithm is a bitstream update rather than a new mask set. An ASIC commits at tape-out and holds that choice for the life of the product.
 

Software-based trust starts after boot, which is already too late. Programmable devices establish a hardware root of trust in immutable silicon and authenticate their own configuration before any logic comes alive – including the provisioning step at a contract manufacturer, where keys can be injected without being exposed.
 

Encryption bolted on in software costs latency at every hop. Programmable logic places crypto and monitoring directly in the data path, running at line rate, so protection scales with traffic instead of trading against it.
 

Altera's Secure Device Manager (SDM) serves as the central command center for the FPGA fabric, hard processor system (HPS) in SoCs, embedded hard IP blocks, and I/O blocks. The SDM controls key operations: configuration, device security, single event upset (SEU) responses, and power management.

Agilex FPGAs with 200G (half-duplex) hard crypto blocks and MACsec IP for physical and data link layer protection capabilities help meet the growing demand for security at every node in a network system.

Endpoints must be secured from malicious commands and malware. Hardened authentication capabilities (in both hard and soft logic) built into Stratix 10 and Agilex FPGAs help protect against remote attacks, and hardware command/control logic reduces the attack surface compared with software-only updates.