Patent ID: 11934529
Assignee: STMICROELECTRONICS (GRAND OUEST) SAS
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  H | IPC G  H

Claim 15:
16. A processing device comprising:
a monotonic counter configured to protect a boot sequence of the processing device by incrementing a counting value;
a non-volatile memory comprising an access control circuit coupled to the monotonic counter;
a hardware timer coupled to a reference clock and configured to generate a current clock value;
a protection circuit coupled to the hardware timer, the monotonic counter, and the non-volatile memory, the protection circuit configured to:
compare the current clock value and a first threshold value to determine whether a first time period after a beginning of the boot sequence has been reached;
at the first time period, compare the counting value with a first reference value; and
if the counting value is smaller than the first reference value, change the counting value to the first reference value.