Securely booting a processing chip to execute securely updated executable code
US11644984B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Sep 18, 2020 |
| Grant date | May 9, 2023 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jan 1, 2042 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L2209/34
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Techniques in electronic systems, such as in systems including a processing chip and one or more external memory chips, provide improvements in one or more of system security, performance, cost, and efficiency. In some embodiments, the processing chip includes immutable hardware enabled to securely boot one or more CPUs of the processing chip to execute code stored encrypted in a non-volatile one of the memory chips. An encrypted update to the code is written to a portion of one of the memory chips and the immutable hardware copies the update to the non-volatile memory chip. The immutable hardware is then able to securely boot the one or more CPUs to execute the encrypted update stored in the non-volatile memory chip. In further embodiments, the non-volatile memory chip and/or the portion of one of the memory chips are not accessible by the one or more CPUs.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.