Sigmastudio projects and intellectual property

Vincent-Delhalle Question

May 19, 2014 00:00

Hello,

I'm currently working on Sigmastudio project for audio signal processing for a product.

This signal processing, will be later transmitted to an third party factory who will work out the hardware and software integration of the DSP and the code in a MCU. This factory will need export from my sigmastudio project such as projectfiles.dat and projectfile.param or the full set of projectfile.h for MCU source code integration.

My questions are :

- From the export I provide to the factory, are they able to reverse engineering my SigmaStudio project ?

- Do this depends on the kind of export (*.h or *.dat files) I give to factory?

- If yes, how can I protect the intellectual property of my projects in a technical way (aside from the non disclosure agreements or any other juridical contracts)?

Thanks for helping

Vincent

Audio Signal Processors

intellectual

reverse

export

sigmastudio

SigmaDSP Audio Processors

SigmaDSP

engineering

adau1701

property

Report

ADIApproved Reply

May 19, 2014 00:00

Hi Vincent:

There is no way to reverse engineer the code comming out of the SigmaStudio (binary codes are not available to the public and assembly code is not open). The .h is simply a way to present the user accessible parameters to a microcontroller; it does not contain any information about the assembly code itself and/or the block connectivity.

The one threat possible is the making of illegal copies of your system. Please make sure you include a clause in your contracts that restrict ODMs or contract manufacturers from reusing the code (parts and/or pieces of it). If this happens it would be a bit to bit copy of your code trated as a black box. I pressume copying everything from your project would be somewhat more difficult.

There are complicated ways to try to further protect your code. They are not hacker proof and rely on a game between your uC (with secured program) and the DSP. If this is not needed 100% I would discourage this approach.

Miguel

Report

Vincent-Delhalle Reply

May 22, 2014 00:00

Thank you Miguel for your answer !

Report

KKSL Reply

May 22, 2014 00:00

Hello Miguel,

The SigmaDSP uses I2C or SPI lines that can be tapped and hence can be used to steal the code at end-user side also.

However, can mirgation to the SHARC platform be the answer to the illegal duplication?

A little out of context: Is there a document where porting SigmaStudio projects to SHARC is explained?

Report