Patent ID: 7089595

Claim:
A method comprising: implementing an integrated circuit device within an electronic system, the integrated circuit device including a control storage element, an override disable pin and an override pin which, when asserted, allows a stored representation of a primary pass-phrase to be modified; and preventing modification of a representation of the primary pass-phrase when the override disable pin is asserted by (i) setting the control storage element within the integrated circuit device upon assertion of the override disable pin and (ii) disabling modification of the primary pass-phrase when the control storage element is set, the primary pass-phrase permitting access to stored information within a non-volatile memory of the integrated circuit device implemented within the electronic system when the primary pass-phrase is input by the user and the primary pass-phrase is determined to be correct based on a comparison conducted between a value computed from the primary pass-phrase and the representation of the primary pass-phrase.