Patent · US Active

Secure executable code update for a securely-bootable processing chip

US12008246B2 · kind B2 · utility

2Cited by
28References
20Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateSep 16, 2020
Grant dateJun 11, 2024
Priority date
Expiry dateDec 30, 2041

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. The processing chip includes immutable hardware enabled to securely boot one or more CPUs of the processing chip to execute code stored in a non-volatile one of the external memory chips, and to update the code. An update to the code is written to a portion of one of the external memory chips that is not accessible to the CPUs, and the immutable hardware copies the update to the non-volatile memory chip. The update is encrypted with a public portion of a key possessed by an entity sending the update, and a private portion of the key, used to decrypt code stored in the non-volatile memory chip, is unique to and solely possessed by the processing chip.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.