DATA PROCESSING SYSTEM WITH PERIPHERAL ACCESS PROTECTION AND METHOD THEREFOR

摘要

One embodiment of the present invention provides a flexible peripheral access protection mechanism within a data processing system (10) in order to obtain a more secure operating environment. For example, the data processing system may include a combination of secure (12) and unsecure bus masters (14, 15) needing to access shared peripherals (22, 24). One embodiment allows for the dynamic update by a secure bus master (12) of access permissions corresponding to each unsecure bus master for each peripheral. A secure bus master is therefore able to establish which unsecure bus masters have permission to access which peripheral in order to protect the data processing system from corruption due to errant or hostile software running on unsecure bus masters. Through the use of a bus master identifier (36), access to the requested peripheral is either allowed or denied based on the permissions established by the secure bus master.