Configuration authentication prior to enabling activation of a fpga having volatile configuration-memory

Abstract

A method and system for authenticating and enabling activation of a configuration used for controlling a product, where the configuration is implemented as safety critical logic functions in programmable logic blocks of a Field Programmable Gate Array, FPGA, having a volatile configuration-memory. The configuration is loaded into the volatile configuration-memory of the FPGA via an external interface input of the FPGA. The content of the configuration-memory of the FPGA is read via an interface of the FPGA. This is done immediately after completed loading of the configuration into the memory of the FPGA. A Cyclic Redundancy Check, CRC, checksum of the read content of the configuration-memory is computed in an CRC checksum generator, and a resulting generated CRC checksum value is compared with an externally stored valid CRC checksum value of the expected FPGA configuration. It is then checked if the generated CRC checksum value and the stored valid CRC checksum value match and the outputs of selected logic functions of the FPGA are enabled only if the generated CRC check value and the stored valid CRC checksum values match.