Introduction to MACsec in the Automotive E/E #AutomotiveEthernet

Lecture by Hari Parmar, Marvell, at the 5th Vector Automotive Ethernet Symposium – a virtual event in June 2021.

As Ethernet becomes an essential part of the overall automotive E/E architecture for connectivity between ECUs (Electronic Control Units) within the vehicle platform, the need arises to protect the data that is transported on such connectivity links.

Data security protocols, such as MACsec, are often deployed in Ethernet Local Area Networks (LANs) that support mission-critical applications. Historically these have included corporate networks of considerable extent and public networks that support many customers with different economic interests.

The semiconductor company Marvell has taken a bold approach to provide MACsec in its advanced switches and PHYs per the IEEE 802.1AE standard, to create a cost-effective hardware-based #CyberSecurity solution that can be offered at OSI Layer 2. This presentation goes through how Marvell has incorporated MACsec, which is a hardware block into the automotive Ethernet PHYs and switch products and addresses what benefits this will bring to the automotive industry.