Safety critical electronic device lock
AssigneeCochlear Limited
InventorsHelmut Christian EDER, Michael TRIEU
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Presented herein are techniques for electronically locking an electronic device in response to detection of a safety critical fault. As used herein, a “safety critical fault” is a fault having a potential to cause harm to an individual using the device. In particular, an electronic device in accordance with certain embodiments presented herein is configured to determine when the electronic device has experienced a safety critical fault. In response, the electronic device automatically restarts itself and, following restart, is automatically forced into a locked mode. The locked mode prevents execution of a run-time program stored in the electronic device.
Claims24
A method, comprising:
- determining, with an implantable component of a medical device, that the implantable component has experienced a safety critical fault;
- automatically restarting the implantable component;
- and
- automatically forcing the implantable component into a locked mode following restarting of the implantable component,
- wherein the locked mode prevents execution of a run-time program stored in the implantable component.
An electronic device, comprising:
- non-volatile memory (NVM) configured to store a run-time program;
- and
- at least one processor configured to:
- execute the run-time program, wherein the execution of the run-time program detects a safety critical fault in operation of the electronic device and corrupt the NVM;
- restart the electronic device and initiate a locked mode, wherein the locked mode includes validation of the NVM of the device;
- determine that the NVM is corrupt;
- and
- in response to determination that the NVM is corrupt, prevent re-execution of the run-time program.
One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media encoded with instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:
- determine, using data from an integrated diagnostic mechanism of an electronic device, that the electronic device has experienced a safety critical fault;
- automatically restart the electronic device;
- determine whether non-volatile memory (NVM) of the electronic device is corrupt;
- and
- in response to determining that the NVM is corrupt, indefinitely execute code stored in read-only memory (ROM) of the electronic device.
(canceled)
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.