A power-gated sensor node microcontroller for security applications

Wireless sensor nodes play important role in power efficient implementation of wireless sensor networks (WSN). In many WSN applications, the content of monitored data is highly sensitive and must be protected from any type of malicious attacks. The security challenges in WSN are mainly driven by limited power and computing resources of sensor node devices, small memory, unsecure radio channels and susceptibility to physical capture. In many applications, commercially available sensor nodes that are entirely built from commodity-of-the-shelf (COTS) components cannot fully answer to specific requirements for low power and high efficiency. Furthermore, those sensor nodes do not provide enough resources to efficiently process security related tasks that employ advanced cryptographic algorithms. The design of an embedded sensor node microcontroller optimized for fast execution of secure crypto algorithms promises the best compromise between power, performance and security.