AN 759: Using Secure Boot in Intel® Arria® 10 SoC Devices

ID 683060
Date 3/29/2021
Public
Document Table of Contents

Security Level Staging

After power-on-reset, the Security Manager determines the initial security level by verifying and reading the fuse data. The Security Manager stores the fuse data in the fuse shadow register, HPS_fusesec. From this point, the boot ROM reads the fuse data from the shadow register and also verifies the security header, if present, in the boot image stored on boot flash partition. The second-stage boot loader is the boot image.

The security header may also contain information to raise the security level for a particular feature implemented in the fuses. The boot ROM merges the fuse values in the shadow registers with the security header values to establish the final security level of the system.

Note: Software may program option registers in the Security Manager to raise the security of the system. The higher level of security takes effect immediately and remains at that level until the next cold reset or for some security features, the next warm or cold reset. After reset occurs, the security level returns to the value programmed by the fuse registers and written in the HPS_fusesec registers.