InterNiche Delivers Accelerated TCP/IP Security Across Range of ColdFire Platforms; CryptoEngine™ Integration of HW Acceleration With NicheStack™ IPv4, SSL and IPSec Dramatically Improves Communications Performance on Freescale Microcontrollers

Business Wire, Sept 20, 2005

CAMPBELL, Calif. -- InterNiche Technologies, the specialist provider of software and expertise for device networking, today announced its enhanced support for Freescale's ColdFire microcontrollers with CryptoEngine technology that enables transparent leverage of HW accelerated authentication and encryption on both MCF523x and MCF548x families. Benchmarking of NicheStack TCP/IP products with the CryptoEngine subsystem demonstrates dramatic improvement in secure communication throughput and greatly decreased CPU utilization.

CryptoEngine eliminates the inefficient and redundant cryptography library usage found in many TCP/IP stack implementations and, on platforms with HW acceleration, fully isolates interface complexity from stack components to enable a truly transparent performance improvement. By using CryptoEngine as a universal cryptographic resource within IPSec, SSL, SNMP and its other TCP/IP products, InterNiche is able to offer efficient software implementations or fully HW accelerated solutions. CryptoEngine is a fully integrated component within the NicheStack version 3.0 embedded TCP/IP product range. Further performance information and evaluation software images will be available through the InterNiche web site: www.iniche.com

Traditional secure protocol implementations require a large memory footprint and are computationally intensive -- both factors slowing availability of state-of-the-art security in the new world of pervasive connected devices. Many Freescale network-enabled microcontroller products include HW acceleration, and now InterNiche can offer fully integrated TCP/IP protocols, management and security support across the ColdFire range. CryptoEngine supports the encryption HA engine in the MCF523x/7x family and the Integrated Security Engine (SEC) in the MCF547x/8x for the NicheStack IPv4 and IPv6 protocol products.

"We are excited to unleash the full capability of NicheStack on these ColdFire platforms and help drive the next wave of secure networked device designs," said Larry Larder, President and CEO of InterNiche. "NicheStack products offer flexible, robust and cost-effective TCP/IP connectivity on device designs, opening up a new world of features and benefits for the system engineer."

About InterNiche

InterNiche is the premier specialist provider of internet protocol software stacks and networking expertise targeted at connected device implementations. InterNiche offers a broad range of TCP/IP protocols, optimized for maximum performance and minimum memory footprint on low cost hardware platforms. Over many years of specialization InterNiche has developed a reputation for delivering robust technology, expert consultancy and highly responsive support, keeping project teams on schedule and within budget. A growing base of world class customers have recognized InterNiche as a reliable supplier for their most challenging networked device projects. InterNiche is headquartered in Campbell, CA. www.iniche.com

NicheStack(TM), NicheTool(TM) and CryptoEngine(TM) are trademarks of InterNiche Technologies, Inc. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.