The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 31, 2011
Filed:
Mar. 06, 2007
Carl U. Buscaglia, Clinton Corners, NY (US);
Vincenzo Condorelli, Poughkeepsie, NY (US);
Kevin C. Gotze, Poughkeepsie, NY (US);
Nihad Hadzic, Wappingers Falls, NY (US);
Donald W. Plass, Poughkeepsie, NY (US);
Tamas Visegrady, Zurich, CH;
Carl U. Buscaglia, Clinton Corners, NY (US);
Vincenzo Condorelli, Poughkeepsie, NY (US);
Kevin C. Gotze, Poughkeepsie, NY (US);
Nihad Hadzic, Wappingers Falls, NY (US);
Donald W. Plass, Poughkeepsie, NY (US);
Tamas Visegrady, Zurich, CH;
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus is disclosed for preventing the unintended retention of secret data caused by preferred state/burn-in in secure electronic modules. Sequentially storing the data and its inverse on alternating clock cycles, and by actively overwriting it to destroy it, prevents SRAM devices from developing a preferred state. By encrypting a relatively large amount of secret data with a master encryption key, and storing said master key in this non-preferred state storage, the electronic module conveniently extends this protection scheme to a large amount of data, without the overhead of investing or actively erasing the larger storage area.