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PawelMa's avatar
PawelMa
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2 years ago
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Erasing a Volatile Key from Arria-10 GX

Hello! In one of our designs, we use the bitstream encryption feature in Arria-10 GX FPGA. We'd like to implement a kill switch (triggered by externally detected tampering). Is it possible to erase...
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Fpga Devkit
Programmable Logic Device
  • PawelMa's avatar
    PawelMa
    2 years ago

    Yes, that was my original question and the goal.

    Ad 1. I've recently received some info on this subject from one of the FAE's, that's very much under NDA, regarding the use of the internal JTAG in the discussed topic. I hope I won't violate the NDA by saying this: It's not impossible.

    Ad 2. That's a very good point. Removing the VCCBAT indeed causes the POR and needs to be extended by external logic, i.e. a monoflip. Having an external security controller, it's easy to implement.

    That solves my question. Thank You a lot!

    Pawel

PawelMa's avatar
PawelMa
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2 years ago

Thank You for the reply.

All I need to do is to erase the volatile key.

It's a simple task when the FPGA is powered off, one can just remove power from the VCCBAT pin.

Would disconnecting the VCCBAT while the FPGA is powered on also result in the key being deleted?

TIA & regards,

Pawel

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