Steve Rogerson looks at how Infineon is tackling a problem facing manufacturers of Matter-enabled devices.

I must admit I have been impressed with the speed at which the industry has reacted to the Matter smart-home standard. Yes, I know there are problems and it is not all “look how easy this is”, and not everyone is onboard, but that will probably never happen; some always want to do their own thing.

What is pleasing now is the fact that some of those problems are not just being acknowledged but being tackled in a practical way. Take the DAC (device attestation certificate) for example. This is like the driving licence for a smart-home device. Without a valid DAC, a Matter-enabled smart-home network won’t link with the device.

This is a good thing. You don’t want every device from every dodgy manufacturer able to connect to your home network. The DAC ensures the device is a certified and authentic Matter device. With ABI Research believing that a quarter of all households worldwide will have at least one type of smart system installed by 2028, there is a lot of potential for some of those to be Trojan horses that will allow bad actors access to your home. That is why the DAC is important.

“Billions of Matter capable devices will be in homes by the end of the decade,” said Steve Hanna, an engineer with German electronics company Infineon, speaking at a press briefing this week.

The trouble is that adding a unique DAC to every individual product is not simple, especially if manufacturers are churning these devices out in their thousands. Adding these DACs is turning out to be expensive, complex and risky, not good when the whole idea behind Matter was to make things easier.

“Adding the DAC to a device complicates the manufacturing process,” said Steve. “Companies are struggling with this. It is often an expensive process to install the DAC.”

Not surprisingly, Infineon believes it has an answer to this, which is why Steve was giving the briefing.

“We want to make sure manufacturers don’t have to spend a lot of time and money on this,” said Steve.

Infineon has brought out a secure element called Optiga Trust M MTR, the MTR being the Matter bit to distinguish it from the existing Optiga Trust M. This can be integrated into any design based on an MCU, not just products from Infineon. These are shipped on reels with an associated barcode. The manufacturer claims ownership of this online through a portal devised by Swiss outfit Kudelski IoT by scanning the barcode. This enables the download of production DACs that can be personalised and added to the product at the factory.

“It is the easiest way to add DACs to your designs,” said Steve. “It improves the security of smart-home devices not just by giving them the DAC but by doing it in a secure way. This makes it simple for IoT manufacturers to build their products in a secure manner.”

Optiga Trust M MTR is already certified and works with different MCUs and MPUs.

“You can choose right up to the time of production how many DACs you need and for which model,” said Steve. “Companies can do this at short notice and generate the DACs.”

Rather than me going into lots of detail about it, you can visit www.infineon.com/OPTIGA-Trust-M-MTR and find out yourself. The point though, as I said earlier, is what we are seeing is a practical answer to a real problem, and to me there can be few surer signs that Matter has reached at least the early stages of maturity. OK, in some ways it is still a grumpy teen, and there will be many more growing pains, but at least they are being dealt with.

“Often people think if you make something simple, it will be less secure,” said Steve. “But that is not the approach we have taken. Making things easier and more secure is fundamental to our approach. This makes it easier for the consumer and the manufacturer.”

And, after all, that is what Matter is meant to be about in the first place. And if you are wondering about the headline, I could not resist making at least one reference to my favourite new song at the moment – Nothing Matters by Last Dinner Party.