Using the ECC508 chip directly?

I'm looking to buy the MKR1000 because it has crypto capabilities. I'm wondering if this chip could be used directly so that I could take advantage of the SHA256 acceleration. Does anyone know?

Hi @Semaphor,

Yes, this would be possible. However, there is no official library to do this yet.

Also, in my testing it's faster to do the SHA256 on the M0 CPU itself, there is a big penalty to transferring data to and from the ECC508 over SPI.

It strikes me that the benefit from the ECC508 chip is that it provides "absolute" secure storage for the certificate(s), something that cannot be assured in software on the M0 on the MKR1000. It is a pity though that the data path takes the SPI through the M0 instead of directly to the WINC1500.

I also need to talk to the ECC508 chip to perform RSA decryption.
I've found a library for the WiFI module which also includes crypthography functions such as the modular exponentiation for large integers, which is the one I need.

Will this work? I think it's worth a shot.

Also, I'm, curious about what SurfindDude said: "pity though that the data path takes the SPI through the M0 instead of directly to the WINC1500."

Does this mean the SPI interface is not usable for something else? I need to talk to an Adafruit PN532 (na NFC breakout board) via SPI. Will I be able to use both the chip and the breakout board?