How to protect fpga based design against cloning?

[Nial Stewart]

Erik Widding <widding@birger.com> wrote in message
news:Fkcpb.66878$1C5.30471@nwrdny02.gnilink.net...

"Nial Stewart" <nial@spamno.nialstewart.co.uk> wrote...
The battery that we use is a Niobium-Lithium (NBL) from Panasonic.
More information:
http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/battery/oem/chem/lith/niobium.htm

Austin's post that parallels this one, makes the very important
point that few engineers bother to understand battery chemistry
or even read the data sheets (Nial - this is not directed at you).

No problem, I've never had to use embedded batteries, it was just
a general interest query.

The major point is Lithium-Ion batteries have a bunch of problems
that are a trade off against the extremely high energy per unit
volume, and the capability of providing high currents (discharge
entire battery in 1 hour), that makes them desireable for cell
phones for example.
NBL batteries are basically everything that a LiIon battery isn't.
Very low self discharge (2%/year), not capable of providing much
current (discharge the entire battery in no less than 400 hours) and
with probably the crappiest energy per unit volume rating of
any commercially viable battery on the market. This is the perfect
(or as perfect as was available two years ago when we qualified it
for design use) battery chemistry for this application.
There are a lot of battery chemistries available. No single
chemistry is right for every application. With fuel cells on the
way shortly, we will soon have yet another option to understand.
Regards,
Erik Widding.

Thanks for the info Erik, this could be useful backround for a design
I've had in mind for some time.


Nial

------------------------------------------------
Nial Stewart Developments Ltd
FPGA and High Speed Digital Design
www.nialstewartdevelopments.co.uk

 

[Nial Stewart]

Austin Lesea <Austin.Lesea@xilinx.com> wrote in message
news:3FA28A84.AAA1FE7A@xilinx.com...

Nial,

Go look thru the design guides for the battery chemistry you want to use:

I haven't wanted to use any yet, hence the ignorance.

you will be glad you did.

I'm sure I will, when I have

Nial.

 

[Arnaud Dion]

Hi

You consider there SRAM-based FPGAs (Xilnx, Altera..) which need external
components to be programmed.

There are others technologies like anti-fuse or Flash-based FPGA. These
FPGAs don't need any others components and so one can't read your bitstream.

Actel is a manufacturor of flash-based FPGA, if you really need security,
have a look at their FPGAs.

Arnaud.

"Glen Herrmannsfeldt" <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> a écrit dans le message de
news:7cXnb.58247$Tr4.129994@attbi_s03...

"Martin Euredjian" <0_0_0_0_@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:J8Vnb.151$t45.14067905@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
"Markus Zingg" wrote:

While reading diverse articles about fpga's I got the impression that
they have to be programmed out of a prom or through a microprocessor
etc. However, this means that it would be very easy to "catch" this
code in a finished design and abuse it to clone/copy such a design.

One take on this is the actual value of a bitstream and how someone
would/could use it in a commercial application and potential
reproduction
of
your project. I've put a lot of thought into this and decided that, at
least for the type of work I'm doing, it's not an issue. Why? Because,
by
the nature of the designs, if someone were to copy the bitstream with
intent
to clone the design (presumably for commercial gain) they'd also have to
design their board exactly as mine. There isn't a court in the world
that
wouldn't favor the original designer when shown that evidence.

My belief is that for most devices, in most markets, with reasonable
markups
this is true.

Consider the toy/video game market. (I don't know if any use FPGA, but
they
could.) The markup is generally very low, using the razor model and
making
most of the money off selling the games (software). In that case,
someone
will have a hard time pricing it low enough (assuming one uses cheap
foreign
labor, as the cloners would). Also, the profitable lifetime is short.

Consider the high end scientific/engineering equipment market. The
number
of devices built will be low, and they might be sold with a high markup
(to
cover design cost, for example). Usually, though, support is an
important
part of the purchase, and buyers of clone devices wouldn't get any
support.
There is also the embarassment of being caught with an illegal device,
especially in a public company.

If your market is primarily in places that have strong copyright laws,
that
is a big part of your protection. If a large part of the market is in
places with weak copyright laws, then you have to consider other
alternatives.

-- glen