Nordic Semiconductor and MCUboot join the Trusted Firmware Project

Nordic Semiconductor (Nordic) is a fabless semiconductor company specializing in ultra-low power and low power wireless communication targeting the Internet of Things (IoT). Nordic offers a range of security features across its product series and has partnered with leading security providers to offer a complete end-to-end security solution for its customers. Nordic joins other Trusted Firmware project members Arm, Google, Linaro, NXP, Renesas, ST, NXM, and Futurewei to drive the strategic and technical direction of the project to collaboratively improve security, driven by standards and best practices.

MCUboot provides a secure bootloader that ensures only authentic software runs on devices and allows easy software upgrade of these devices. An open-source community project, MCUboot is integrated as secure bootloader on a wide range of Real Time Operating Systems (RTOS) and hardware platforms. MCUboot joins other Trusted Firmware projects, TF-A, TF-M, TF-RMM, Hafnium, Trusted Services, OP-TEE and Mbed TLS providing a comprehensive set of open source secure software projects. MCUboot will be able to leverage the Trusted Firmware project infrastructure, processes and test systems while continuing to provide a world leading bootloader to projects beyond Trusted Firmware.

“The growing scale and sophistication of cyber attacks and the emergence of new regulations to better secure consumer devices means the ecosystem must work together to solve complex security challenges,” said Shebu Varghese Kuriakose, co-chair, Trustedfirmware.org and Director of Software Technology Management, Arm. “By joining the Trusted Firmware project, Nordic Semiconductor brings extensive expertise and a shared commitment alongside our existing members to deliver a collaborative platform for designing and developing secure software that will benefit the entire industry. Trusted Firmware will also provide a platform to expand the collaboration around MCUboot making it the bootloader of choice for the wider ecosystem.”

“As an active contributor and user of the MCUboot project since its very early days, Nordic has already pioneered the use of the open source bootloader in its nRF Connect SDK, the company’s scalable and unified software development kit,” said Svein-Egil Nielsen, CTO/EVP R&D and Strategy, Nordic Semiconductor. “nRF Connect SDK includes MCUboot as the default bootloader for the nRF91, nRF53 and nRF52 Series devices used for building Bluetooth Low Energy, Wi-Fi, cellular IoT, Bluetooth mesh, Thread, Zigbee and Matter products. Beyond MCUboot, Nordic is also involved in the development of other Trusted Firmware projects, such as TF-M and Mbed TLS, both also part of the nRF Connect SDK included set of open source projects. Now, Nordic looks forward to continuing the collaboration on all those projects as a member of the Trusted Firmware family.”

About TrustedFirmware.org

TrustedFirmware.org is an open source project implementing foundational software components for creating secure devices. Trusted Firmware provides a reference implementation of secure software for processors implementing both the A-Profile and M-Profile Arm architecture. It provides SoC developers and OEMs with a reference trusted code base complying with the relevant Arm specifications. Trusted Firmware code is the preferred implementation of Arm specifications, allowing quick and easy porting to modern chips and platforms. This forms the foundations of a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) on application processors, or the Secure Processing Environment (SPE) of microcontrollers. Visit: https://www.trustedfirmware.org/

TrustedFirmware.org is member driven and member funded. To learn more about membership and its benefits, please see the TrustedFirmware.org about page or send a request for more information to enquiries@trustedfirmware.org.

About Linaro Community Projects Division

The Trusted Firmware Project is hosted by the Linaro Community Projects Division, the division of Linaro managing open source community projects with open governance. Linaro works with businesses and open-source communities to develop software solutions and tools on Arm-based technology. Through its collaborative projects, Linaro strives to solve Arm ecosystem quality issues, deliver upstream support for Architecture and OS requirements, and solve problems of fragmentation which limit market deployment. All this work helps accelerate the deployment of secure and high-quality Arm-based products to market. In addition to its collaborative projects, Linaro also delivers professional services to businesses. For more information on Linaro, go to www.linaro.org.

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