Consumer product distribution in the embedded system market

• US 7,644,279 B2
• Filed: 07/18/2002
• Issued: 01/05/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/05/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: QST Holdings LLC
• Original Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Inventors: Rubin, Owen Robert, Uhrig, Nalini Praba, Murray, Eric
• Primary Examiner(s): Korzuch; William R
• Assistant Examiner(s): Moorthy; Aravind K
• Application Number:
  US10/199,923
• Publication Number:
  US 20040132479A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,728 Days
• Field of Search: 713/150, 713/165, 713/168, 713/176, 713/189, 726/14, 726/26, 380/201, 380/231, 705/51, 705/52, 705/55, 705/59
• US Class Current: 713/176
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/7867 with reconfigurable architecture
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/572 Secure firmware programming, e.g. of basic input output system [BIOS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/76 in application-specific integrated circuits [ASIC] or field-programmable devices, e.g. field-programmable gate arrays [FPGA] or programmable logic devices [PLD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/00 Computer-aided design [CAD]

Abstract

Aspects for consumer product distribution in the embedded system market are described. The aspects include forming a secure network for distributing product digitation files capable of configuring operations of an adaptive computing engine (ACE), and providing an agent server within the secure network for controlling licenses of the product digitation files, wherein a separation of responsibility and control of the distributing and licensing exists.

Claims

1. A system for consumer product distribution, the system comprising:

an agent server configured to;

receive a digitation file from a source, wherein the digitation file comprises an interdigitated stream of data that includes configuration information and data to be processed by an adaptive computing engine (ACE), and wherein operations performed by the ACE are configured by the digitation file,

associate the digitation file with a certificate to create a signed digitation file, and

return the signed digitation file to the source; and

a license server configured to;

store the signed digitation file, and

store a license associated with the signed digitation file,

wherein a first ACE is configured to receive a first instance of the digitation file, verify that the first instance of the digitation file includes a signature that corresponds to the certificate associated with the digitation file by the agent server, and request a first instance of the license associated with the first instance of the digitation file from the license server.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a secure connection for transmitting the digitation file from the source to the agent server.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the agent server returns the signed digitation file to the source across the secure connection.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the source is configured to encrypt the signed digitation file and to assign a code identifier to the signed and encrypted digitation file.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the source is further configured to send the signed and encrypted digitation file to the agent server to be made available for acquisition.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the first ACE includes a security manager configured to verify that the first instance of the digitation file includes a signature that corresponds to the certificate associated with the digitation file by the agent server.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the security manager is configured to save the first instance of the license received from the license server and to determine terms of the first instance of the license for tracking use of the first instance of the digitation file.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the first ACE and the license server utilize certificates to authenticate with each other.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the first ACE includes:

a memory storing the first instance of the digitation file, wherein the memory includes an adaptive silicon foundation, and wherein the first instance of the digitation file, when applied to the adaptive silicon foundation, provides a hardware designation and software application for the adaptive silicon foundation;

a plurality of computational elements; and

an interconnection network adapted to configure the plurality of computational elements in response to the configuration information to perform any one of a plurality of algorithms in response to the configuration information.

10. A method for consumer product distribution, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving a digitation file from a source, wherein the digitation file comprises an interdigitated stream of data that includes configuration information and data to be processed by an adaptive computing engine (ACE), and wherein operations performed by the ACE are configured by the digitation file;

associating the digitation file with a certificate to create a signed digitation file; and

returning the signed digitation file to the source,

wherein the signed digitation file and a license associated with the signed digitation file are stored in a license server, and

wherein a first ACE is configured to receive a first instance of the digitation file, verify that the first instance of the digitation file includes a signature that corresponds to the certificate associated with the digitation file by the agent server, and request a first instance of the license associated with the first instance of the digitation file from the license server.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising the step of:

utilizing a secure connection for receiving the digitation file from the source.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of returning the signed digitation file to the source is performed over the secure connection.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the source is configured to encrypt the signed digitation file and to assign a code identifier to the encrypted and encrypted digitation file.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the first ACE is further configured to request acquisition of the first instance of the digitation file.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the first ACE includes a security manager configured to verify that the signature included in the first instance of the digitation file corresponds to the certificate associated with the digitation file by an agent server.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the first ACE includes:

a memory storing the first instance of the digitation file, wherein the memory includes an adaptive silicon foundation, and wherein the first instance of the digitation file, when applied to the adaptive silicon foundation, provides a hardware designation and software application for the adaptive silicon foundation;

a plurality of computational elements; and

an interconnection network adapted to configure the plurality of computational elements in response to the configuration information to perform any one of a plurality of algorithms in response to the configuration information.