Patent ID: 7093021

Claim:
An electronic circuit chip comprising: a memory for storing information defining an encryption procedure assigned to the electronic circuit chip; at least one input to the electronic circuit chip for writing, to the memory, the information defining the encryption procedure assigned to the electronic circuit chip, and for receiving data to be encrypted by the encryption procedure assigned to the electronic circuit chip; encryption circuitry for reading from the memory the information defining the encryption procedure assigned to the electronic circuit chip, and for encrypting the data from said at least one input to the electronic circuit chip according to the encryption procedure assigned to the electronic circuit chip, to produce encrypted data; and at least one output from the electronic circuit chip for transmitting the encrypted data produced by the encryption circuitry; wherein the electronic circuit chip is constructed so that the information defining the encryption procedure assigned to the electronic circuit chip cannot be read from the memory from any output of the electronic circuit chip; and wherein the electronic circuit chip is constructed so that it cannot recover the information in the memory by probing, inspection, or disassembly; and which includes a metal shielding layer over the memory so that the information stored in the memory cannot be read by visual inspection or probing.