Shared IC Sensor Threshold Isolation for Secure Multi-Core Access
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional ICs face challenges in ensuring security and environmental monitoring under varying conditions, particularly in achieving FIPS140-3 certification, as unauthorized software can alter threshold settings, compromising system integrity.
Innovation Solution
Implementing multiple thresholds for a single sensor, each managed by a different actor (security, system, or safety core), with hardware filters ensuring exclusive access and dynamic or fixed threshold settings based on core roles, allowing separate responses to threshold breaches.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If a single sensor is shared between multiple cores, then die area is reduced, but access control and security management become more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the sensor's threshold registers into multiple separate registers (first threshold register, second threshold register, etc.), each dedicated to a specific core. This segmentation allows each core to have its own dedicated threshold storage location, simplifying access control while still sharing the physical sensor hardware. The sensor is divided into multiple functional access paths rather than requiring complex arbitration for a single shared register.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements a universal sensor structure that can serve multiple cores simultaneously through hardware filters. The same sensor hardware (including ADC and comparator) is made multi-functional by allowing different cores to access different threshold registers and receive different sensor readings based on their specific needs, eliminating the need for separate physical sensors for each core.
2Adaptability or versatility
If threshold settings are accessible to multiple software tasks, then system flexibility is improved, but security is compromised due to unauthorized alterations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments threshold access rights by creating separate threshold registers for different cores. Each core can only access and modify its designated threshold register, providing security through physical separation of access paths. This allows the security core to maintain fixed, protected thresholds while other cores can modify their own thresholds, achieving both security and flexibility simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by giving different access permissions to different parts of the threshold register structure. The security core has exclusive access to security-related threshold registers with fixed values, while other cores have access to their own threshold registers that can be dynamically modified. This localized access control ensures that unauthorized alterations can only affect non-security thresholds.
Solution Approach 3:
The patent introduces hardware filters as intermediaries between cores and threshold registers. These filters act as mediators that automatically enforce access control policies, allowing the security core to read/write security thresholds while blocking other cores from accessing security registers. This intermediary layer provides security without requiring complex software permission management.
3Ease of operation
If separate sensors are allocated to different cores, then access control is simplified, but die area increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple sensor functionalities into a single physical sensor unit that serves multiple cores. The shared sensor includes a common ADC and comparator that can service multiple cores by reading from different threshold registers. This consolidation reduces die area while maintaining simplified access control through the hardware filter mechanism that directs each core to its appropriate threshold register.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a universal sensor structure that can perform multiple functions for different cores simultaneously. The same sensor hardware adapts to serve security cores, system cores, and safety cores by switching between different threshold registers based on hardware filter configuration, eliminating the need for separate physical sensors while maintaining core-specific access control.
Data Source
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AI summary
Systems and methods for sharing a sensor between different actors in an Integrated Circuit (IC) are discussed. In some embodiments, an electronic circuit may include: first and second cores; and a sensor coupled to the first and second cores, the sensor comprising: (a) a first threshold register coupled to a first hardware access filter, where the first hardware access filter allows the first core to access the first threshold register to the exclusion of the second core, and (b) a second threshold register coupled to second hardware access filter, where the second hardware access filter allows the second core to access the second threshold register to the exclusion of the first core.