Security SoC Architecture with Hardware-Based Pre-Authentication

Abstract

Edge Devices with limited power and processing performance need the help of hardware-based security solutions in order to provide sufficient security services. The hardware-based security solutions have been proposed to separate hardware resources into the secure area and the normal area and determine whether accessible according to the secure mode of the processor. The solutions determine secure mode based on the importance of the application or to let the user decide. However, this makes it possible for unauthorized users to access the secure area when the device is stolen or replicated. To solve this problem, we propose a hardware-based pre-authentication protocol which determines if the edge device is a safe situation. The proposed pre-authentication protocol includes all the processes the chip producing, issuing, and using. SoC with the Core-A processor and pre-authentication module was implemented as a hardware chip, and it was confirmed that Core-A enters secure mode after succeeding in the pre-authentication protocol.