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Security is gaining relevance in the development of embedded devices. Toward a secure system at each level of design, this paper addresses security aspects related to Network-on-Chip (NoC) architectures, foreseen as the communication infrastructure of next-generation embedded devices. In the context of NoC-based multiprocessor systems, we focus on the topic, not yet thoroughly faced, of data protection. In this paper, we present a secure NoC architecture composed of a set of Data Protection Units (DPUs) implemented within the Network Interfaces (NIs). The runtime configuration of the programmable part of the DPUs is managed by a central unit, the Network Security Manager (NSM). The DPU, similar to a firewall, can check and limit the access rights (none, read,write, or both) of processors accessing data and instructions in a shared memory. In particular, the DPU can distinguish between the operating roles (supervisor/user and secure/nonsecure) of the processing elements. We explore alternative implementations of the DPU and demonstrate how this unit does not affect the network latency if the memory request has the appropriate rights. We also focus on the dynamic updating of the DPUs to support their utilization in dynamic environments and on the utilization of authentication techniques to increase the level of security

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Security issues are emerging to be a basic concern in modern SoC development. Since

Security is gaining increasing relevance in the development of embedded devices. Towards a secure system at each level of design, this paper addresses the security aspects related to Network-on-Chip (NoC) architectures, foreseen as the communication infrastructure of next-generation embedded devices. In the context of NoC-based Multiprocessor systems, we focus on the topic, not thoroughly faced yet, of data protection.We present the architecture of a Data Protection Unit (DPU) designed for implementation within the Network Interface (NI). The DPU supports the capability to check and limit the access rights (none, read, write or both) of processors requesting access to data locations in a shared memory -in particular distinguishing between the operating roles (supervisor or user) of processing elements. We explore different alternative implementations and demonstrate how the DPU unit does not affect the network latency if the memory request has the appropriate rights. In the experimental section we show synthesis results for different ASIC implementations of the Data Protection Unit.