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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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13 years ago

Any good method to encrypt JIC file?

Hi,guys.

For Cylcone II or Cyclone III devices, is there any way to protect design from being read back.

4 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    13 years ago

    --- Quote Start ---

    Hi,guys.

    For Cylcone II or Cyclone III devices, is there any way to protect design from being read back.

    --- Quote End ---

    Nope, that's one of the few drawbacks of sram based FPGAs.

    Nial.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    13 years ago

    What you need is a Cyclone III LS, which has a configuration encryption/decryption engine.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    13 years ago

    Usually how will it be read back? If it is hard to do this, then it's ok

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    13 years ago

    Reading back the contents of an EPCS chip is very easy. It is a standard serial SPI chip. But if you use the Cyclone III LS, the data on the EPCS will be encrypted, with the key stored in the FPGA itself. So even if someone reads back the contents of the chip, it will be impossible to get back the original contents or to copy it to another board without the FPGA's key.