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LCR's avatar
LCR
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6 years ago

IEEE 1735 Encryption Public Key

Hello,

I would like to have an encrypting public key to encrypt HDL code with a third party tool, for Quartus Prime.

In case this was possible, which will be the scope and the lifetime of such key? Will I can use it for both Standard and Lite version of Quartus Prime? Will I can use such key forever or it will have an expiration time? Will the key can be used for both academic and commercial purposes (i.e. encrypting HDL code of my IP with that key for deliviring the code to both academic research groups and/or to customer which I work with)?

Best regards,

Luca Crocetti.

3 Replies

  • LCR's avatar
    LCR
    Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
    6 years ago

    Dear AAbd,

    thank you for your reply.

    I agree on the fact that Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition software does not support IEEE 1735 encryption, indeed the command line console of Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition software does not support the command encrypt_1735, which is instead supported by the Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition, as specified in its user guide that you posted in your reply: I tryed to execute such command by means on the Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition software command line console and it responds with an error message of the kine "command unknown". Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, this should only means that the Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition software is not able to generate encrypted HDL sources, but not that is not able to parse/read/process encrypted HDL files generated with a third-party tool (that is precisely my goal).

    Which is your opinion about this? Am I right? Or am I wrong?

  • KhaiChein_Y_Intel's avatar
    KhaiChein_Y_Intel
    Icon for Regular Contributor rankRegular Contributor
    6 years ago

    Hi @LCR​,

    The key will not expire with that version of the Intel Quartus Prime software. It is possible that the key will be updated in a future release of the Intel Quartus Prime software. If this happens, the older key will not work in the newer version of the software. Besides that, the key can be used by academic and customers. Note: there is a disclaimer that we do not guarantee the security of the encryption as there are known flaws in the IEEE spec.

    No. The Intel Quartus Prime Standard edition software cannot process the encrypted HDL files.

    Thanks.