Patent ID: 7437571

Claim:
A system for controlling access to digital services comprising: (a) a control center configured to coordinate and provide digital services; (b) an uplink center configured to receive the digital services from the control center and transmit the digital services to a satellite; (c) the satellite configured to: (i) receive the digital services from the uplink center; (ii) process the digital services; and (iii) transmit the digital services to a subscriber receiver station; (d) the subscriber receiver station configured to: (i) receive the digital services from the satellite; (ii) control access to the digital services through an integrated receiver/decoder (IRD); (e) a conditional access module (CAM) communicatively coupled to the IRD, wherein the CAM comprises: (i) a protected nonvolatile memory component, wherein: (1) the protected nonvolatile memory component is used to contain state information to provide desired functionality and enforce one or more security policies for accessing the digital services; (2) programming control and a programming charge pump are shared by both the protected nonvolatile memory component and a microprocessor's non-protected nonvolatile memory component; and (3) the microprocessor's non-protected nonvolatile memory component and the protected nonvolatile memory component use physical and logical address ranges that are the same; and (ii) a fixed state custom logic block configured to control access to the nonvolatile memory component, wherein data and address lines of the protected nonvolatile memory component are routed only to the fixed state custom logic block.