Patent ID: 7814337

Claim:
A secure flash-memory peripheral comprising: a local central processing unit (CPU) for executing instructions for operating the secure flash-memory peripheral; a CPU bus primarily controlled by the local CPU; a flash-serial buffer bus not primarily controlled by the local CPU; a RAM buffer for storing encrypted flash data for storage by the secure flash-memory peripheral; a flash-memory-card controller for controlling a removable flash card with a flash memory that stores the encrypted flash data, having a slave port for coupling to the CPU bus and receiving commands from the local CPU, and having a master port for coupling to the flash-serial buffer bus for transferring encrypted flash data to the RAM buffer; a serial link for connecting the secure flash-memory peripheral to a personal computer; a serial engine for sending and receiving the clear flash data serially over the serial link, the serial engine having a slave port for coupling to the CPU bus and receiving commands from the local CPU, and having a master port for coupling to the flash-serial buffer bus for transferring clear flash data to the RAM buffer; and an encryption engine on the flash-serial buffer bus, for encrypting clear flash data from the serial engine for storage as encrypted flash data by the flash-memory-card controller, and for decrypting encrypted flash data read by the flash-memory-card controller to generate clear flash data for transfer by the serial engine, whereby the flash-serial buffer bus transfers the encrypted flash data and the CPU bus sends commands to the flash-memory-card controller and to the serial engine.