TF-M Profiles

The capabilities and resources may dramatically vary on different IoT devices. Some IoT devices may have very limited memory resource. The program on those devices should keep small memory footprint and basic functionalities. On the other hand, some devices may consist of more memory and extended storage, to support stronger software capabilities.

Diverse IoT use cases also require different levels of security and requirements on device resource. For example, use cases require different cipher capabilities. Selecting cipher suites can be sensitive to memory footprint on devices with constrained resource.

Trusted Firmware-M (TF-M) defines several general profiles, such as Profile Small, Profile Medium, Profile Medium ARoT-less and Profile Large, to provide different levels of security to fit diverse device capabilities and use cases applied on the top of the base configuration.

Each profile specifies a predefined list of features, targeting typical use cases with specific hardware constraints. Profiles can serve as reference designs, based on which developers can continue further development and configurations, according to use case.

TF-M Profiles align with Platform Security Architecture specifications and certification guidelines. It can help vendors to simplify security configuring for PSA certification.

Please check the table below to compare differences while details are discussed in the links below.

Option

Base

Small

ARoT-less

Medium

Large

TFM_ISOLATION_LEVEL

1

1

1

2

3

CONFIG_TFM_SPM_BACKEND

SFN

SFN

SFN

IPC

IPC

TFM_PARTITION_CRYPTO

OFF

ON

ON

ON

ON

TFM_PARTITION_INTERNAL_TRUSTED_STORAGE

OFF

ON

ON

ON

ON

TFM_PARTITION_PLATFORM

OFF

OFF

ON

ON

ON

TFM_PARTITION_PROTECTED_STORAGE

OFF

OFF

OFF

ON

ON

TFM_PARTITION_INITIAL_ATTESTATION

OFF

ON

ON

ON

ON

SYMMETRIC_INITIAL_ATTESTATION

OFF

ON

OFF

OFF

OFF

TFM_PARTITION_FIRMWARE_UPDATE

OFF

OFF

ON

OFF

OFF

PS_CRYPTO_AEAD_ALG

GCM

-

-

CCM

CCM

PSA_FRAMEWORK_HAS_MM_IOVEC

OFF

ON

OFF

OFF

OFF

MCUBOOT_IMAGE_NUMBER 1

2

1

2

2

2

Advanced options, defined in the corresponded header (.h) file

CRYPTO_ENGINE_BUF_SIZE

0x2080

0x400

0x2080

0x2080

0x2380

CRYPTO_ASYM_SIGN_MODULE_ENABLED

ON

OFF

ON

ON

ON

CRYPTO_ASYM_ENCRYPT_MODULE_ENABLED

ON

OFF

OFF

OFF

ON

CRYPTO_SINGLE_PART_FUNCS_DISABLED

OFF

ON

OFF

OFF

OFF

CRYPTO_CONC_OPER_NUM

8

4

8

8

8

CONFIG_TFM_CONN_HANDLE_MAX_NUM

8

3

8

8

8

ITS_BUF_SIZE 2

512

32

32

32

512

  1. MCUBOOT_IMAGGE_NUMBER value is taken from MCUBoot default configuration, execept profile Small.

  2. Many platforms redefine ITS_BUF_SIZE value.

Each profile has predefined configuration for cryptographic library, located in /lib/ext/mbedcrypto/mbedcrypto_config/


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