AUTOMOTIVES


supports the industry’s broader goals of innovation and connectivity. This aligns with Silicon Motion’s commitment to driving forward the technology underpinning SDVs, ensuring that these vehicles are equipped to meet the demands of tomorrow’s drivers.


Hardware acceleration High data security is critical to ensure that stored information is not easy to steal. FerriSSD chips are TCG Opal 2.0 compliant. From this, the SSD utilises AES256-XTS mode for the data encryption.


In addition, firmware is digitally signed with eFuse and AES encryption to enhance the security of the FerriSSD BGA SSD in automotive environments. Enabling the eFuse locks the device to completely prevent access to the SSD through GPIOs or by special vendor command. AES protects the user data by preventing decoding without the correct AES key.


In addition, these BGA SSDs rely on SHA384 encryption in hardware with a True Random Number Generator (TRNG) to ensure robust data security. The TRNG engine, implemented in hardware, generates random numbers and these are used as the AES key. This decreases the possibility of breaking the keys.


Note that SHA is not used in the data encryption flow and instead is used in the flow of checking the integrity of the firmware image. Implementing dedicated hardware to perform these calculations accelerates the process.


In addition, the FerriSSD lets the host


operate multiple virtual SSDs through a single PCIe port by leveraging SMI’s SR-IOV capability. Enabling virtual machines to share a single physical PCIe device allows flexibility and scalability while maintaining security. To ensure data integrity and prevent any losses, FerriSSDs implement SMI’s IntelligentLog telemetry system. This is specially designed for automotive and server applications and comprehensively reports health status including temperature, power supply, interface and cell status. In addition to describing the drive’s current condition, the telemetry provides advance error warnings that proactively inform the host of


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Today’s electrified and connected vehicles are often described as being like a mobile phone on wheels.


any potential dangers.


As a supply chain partner, SMI qualifies its FerriSSDs according to the applicable product-level assurances. In manufacture, the standard JEDEC specifications are applied as well as reliability testing including HTOL, HTSL, UHAST, TCT, ESD and latch-up tests. To support traceability of the SSDs, all suppliers in the chain from the foundry to assembly and all the way to the testing house are certificated with IATF 16949. For a supplier to achieve IATF 16949 confirms that the company’s entire production history is traceable.


Conclusion


SSD testing, inspection, and supply Inspection results are an important part of the traceability chain for automotive electronic assemblies. However, BGA packages, when soldered down, are difficult to inspect using conventional visual inspection techniques and automatic optical inspection (AOI). FerriSSDs allow monitoring of SSD status by providing access to the SMART/Telemetry/FerriSSD IntelligentLog using the Get Log Page command.


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The automotive industry has always taken a conservative and cautious approach to adopting new technologies, particularly with electronic technologies and components. Some things will never change and quality, traceability, inspection and screening requirements remain as high as ever. However, the industry is now quickly adopting software-defined design principles to differentiate their products, introduce new features and functionality quickly and satisfy new legislation cost-effectively. While moving quickly to achieve this, ensuring proper security must remain a priority to prevent theft of personal data and intellectual property and guard against threats to safety. Strong security features including digital signatures handling and encryption using state-of-the-art algorithms protect sensitive data residing on SSD ICs in the main vehicle controller and zone controllers throughout the vehicle.


JUNE 2026 | ELECTRONICS FOR ENGINEERS 25


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