Sigma Designs Supports CRI's Self-Protecting Digital Content for Secure Media Processors

Cryptography Research technology key to helping secure HD DVD
and Blu-Ray

(05.06.05) - Cryptography Research, Inc. (CRI) announced that Sigma Designs is supporting CRI's Self-Protecting Digital Content (SPDC) optical media security technology in Sigma's next-generation SMP8630 series secure media processors. The SMP8630 series is a family of highly-integrated single-chip solutions capable of supporting all major features required for next-generation optical formats, making it seamless for consumer electronics manufacturers to produce affordable feature-rich players that include the security that HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc players will need to ensure complete content protection for high-definition optical media.

"The SMP8630 Series is the first high-volume consumer platform with official support for CRI's unique renewable security architecture, placing Sigma Designs at the forefront of the industry," said Kit Rodgers, vice president of business development at Cryptography Research. "Their pioneering efforts will help the new high-definition formats take advantage of SPDC's renewable security and recover from security problems without revoking consumers' players."

"Our SMP8630 Series chips were developed with a focus on content security," said Ken Lowe, vice president of strategic marketing for Sigma Designs. "The features and flexibility of the SMP8630 Series enable us to easily support SPDC without silicon changes."

CRI's Self-Protecting Digital Content (SPDC) provides renewable security for optical disc formats. With SPDC, each media disc carries encrypted content and its own decoding software. This software runs in a simple security interpreter in each player and can query the playback environ-ment to detect and respond to security and compatibility problems. (Cryptography Research: ma)