Intersil has introduced a battery authentication ICs for cell phones. The ISL9206 and ISL9206A are battery authentication ICs that incorporate Intersil’s FlexiHash+ engine. It provides very high levels of security using a basic challenge/response scheme based on 32-bit challenge code and 8-bit response code. FlexiHash+ employs two sets of 32-bit secrets for generating authentication code to offer tens of billions of potential configurations for users. And with 16x8 one-time programmable (OTP) ROM, the devices can store a total of three sets of these 32-bit secrets. Programmable memory adds the ability to store up to 48 bits of ID code and/or pack information. The result is fast, highly secure and flexible battery/device authentication that makes hacking prohibitively difficult due to the exhaustive key search that would be needed to break a code.

The ISL9206/06A each have an operating voltage range from 2.6V to 4.8V and can be powered directly from a one-cell li-Ion/li-Polymer or a three-cell series NiMH battery pack. The devices can also be powered by the XSD bus when the bus pull-up voltage is 3.3V or higher. They connect to the cell terminals of a battery pack and include an on-chip voltage regulation circuit, POR and a non-crystal based oscillator for bus timing reference. Both new authentication ICs also include a clone prevention feature offering safety and revenue protection suitable for protection against after-market replacements. As an added feature, the ISL9206 incorporates multi-pass authentication that can be used to maximise security. Both devices are also design choices for a variety of printer cartridges. The ISL9206 and ISL9206A are available now in 5 Ld SOT-23 and 8 Ld TDFN packages.