Patent ID: 8732468

Claim:
A method for locking a bus in a digital bus-based device, the method comprising: the digital bus-based device generating a first unique identification data (ID) for the device such that the first unique ID is different than IDs for a plurality of other digital bus-based devices fabricated along with the digital bus-based device; an authenticator external to the digital bus-based device generating a second unique ID for the digital bus-based device, where both the authenticator and the digital bus-based device apply a first transformation rule on their respective first and second unique IDs; communicating the first unique ID, applied to the transformation rule, from the digital bus-based device to the authenticator and in response the authenticator determining a first secret authentication key derived from the received first unique ID applied to the transformation rule; communicating the second unique ID, applied to the transformation rule, from the authenticator to the digital bus-based device and in response encrypting the bus in the semiconductor bus-based device with a second secret authentication key derived from the received second unique ID applied to the transformation rule; and communicating the first secret authentication key to the digital bus-based device, wherein the digital bus-based device determines if the first secret authentication key is the same as the second secret authentication key in which case the bus in the digital bus-based device is decrypted, wherein if the first secret authentication key is not the same as the second secret authentication key, the bus in the digital bus-based device remains encrypted.