How much time does it take to add in-field updating and On-the-Fly decryption to a project?

[mjbcswitzerland]

Hi All

A typical situation is that one spends a certain amount of time working on a product and realises that although the product development is nearing completion there is still no in-field updating concept ready and also clone and IP protection hasn't been addressed/solved.

The following video shows that existing projects (including SDK examples) can be made field up-loadable in either plain-code and/or in on-the-fly AES128 encrypted form in as little as 5 minutes: Saving developers otherwise possibly weeks of work and managers thousands of dollars of project costs:

https://youtu.be/5iT7KP691ls

The Standard Solution for all i.MX RT 1010..1064 parts with automatic BEE or OTFAD on-the-fly configuration and various industrially proven in-field loading methods. Works also with most Kinetis parts (AES256 encrypted but without on-the-fly decryption since they don't need it).
Also works with AES256 encrypted uploads for internal RAM or external SDRAM operation.

Regards

Mark
uTasker project developer for Kinetis and i.MX RT]
Contact me by personal message or on the uTasker web site to discuss professional training or product development requirements

[mjbcswitzerland]

Notes:

1. Attached is the uTasker loader for the i.MX RT 1050 board (as used in the video). It works in demo mode so, although it is using all encryption as normal it doesn't commit and protect the AES128/256key to the eFUSEs. That means that NO eFUSEs are changed and so there is no risk using this file.

2. The uTasker utilities are readily available at https://www.utasker.com/forum/index.php?topic=1445.msg5514#msg5514

3. The guide is also available in written form, together with the content of the boot_header.txt and Generate.bat files, at https://www.utasker.com/docs/iMX/MCUXpresso.pdf - notice that the program offset is +0x20200 in the written guide (correct for most boards) but the Hyper flash on the i.MX RT 10150 needs +0x80200 (as shown in the video) due to its flash's large 256k granularity.
Any SDK example of interest can thus be simply uploaded and operated in on-the-fly encrypted form on this board for your own reference purposes.

4. The loader also supports code that runs in SDRAM and in internal RAM (a slightly different guide is needed), and is available for i.MX RT 1010, i.MX RT 1020, i.MX RT 1050,i.MX RT 1060, i.MX RT 1064, Embedded Artists 1052 and 1062 OEM modules as well as Teensy 4.0 and Teensy 4.1 - or can be customised for any custom board. It includes fail-safe OTA upgrading support if the application makes use of this (general SDK application won't support this though).

Regards

Mark