A Secure Dual-Core Processor Design for Embedded Terminal Device

Abstract

Embedded terminal devices are widely used in security-critical systems such as financial payments, and the security of their confidential data is becoming a concern for people. This paper presents a design method of embedded secure dual-core processor for smart terminal devices. The method uses a combination of physical security design and logical security design to protect the confidential data. In the physical security design, a physical isolation between the two cores is implemented through the interconnection network and the dual-core communication module, so that the confidential data runs in a closed environment completely isolated from the actual application to prevent the possibility of the confidential data being drawn at the application development terminal. In the logical security design, using the advantages of dual core, a combination of software and hardware is adopted to implement two-core cooperative encryption to prevent side-channel attacks from leaking confidential data. The proposed processor has very little hardware overhead and performance penalty.