Last edited 7 months ago

RISAF internal peripheral


1. Article purpose[edit | edit source]

The purpose of this article is to:

  • briefly introduce the RISAF peripheral and its main features,
  • indicate the peripheral instances assignment at boot time and their assignment at runtime (including whether instances can be allocated to secure contexts),
  • list the software frameworks and drivers managing the peripheral,
  • explain how to configure the peripheral.

2. Peripheral overview[edit | edit source]

The RISAF peripheral is part of the RIF. It is used to protect external memories and BKPSRAM accesses.

Its main features are:

  • Variable sized address space memory region with 256Byte or 4kByte granularity depending on memory to protect
  • Access filtering per:
    • secure level
    • CID filtering
    • privilege level per CID
    • read-only, write-only or read/write per CID
  • Possibility to delegate some sub-region configuration to a specified execution context defined by delegated configuration CID. Useful to manage memory region access right at SW component level instead of requiring changes to TDCID secure OS.

Some RISAF instances support memory regions encryption. It should be used on secure regions only that are bypassed in case of tamper event, with the cypher key erased.

Refer to the STM32 MPU reference manuals for the complete list of features, and to the software frameworks and drivers, introduced below, to see which features are implemented.

3. Peripheral usage[edit | edit source]

This chapter is applicable in the scope of the OpenSTLinux BSP running on the Arm® Cortex®-A processor(s), and the STM32CubeMPU Package running on the Arm® Cortex®-M processor.

On STM32MP25x lines More info.png, there are 4 RISAF instances. The following table shows RISAF - External memory interface mapping and provides information regarding RISAF programming owner and default HW configuration.
RISAF registers are accessible in read by all execution context to check memory can be accessed or not.

RISAF instance Protected interface Owner Nb regions Encryption Default configuration
RISAF1 BKPSRAM (8kB) TDCID Secure 4 No Secure, privileged, TDCID only
RISAF2 OCTOSPI1&2
memory mapped region (256Mbyte)
TDCID Secure 4 No Secure, privileged, TDCID only
RISAF4 DDR (4GByte) TDCID Secure 15 Yes Secure, privileged, TDCID only
RISAF5 PCIe (256MByte) TDCID Secure 2 No Secure, privileged, TDCID only

3.1. Boot time assignment[edit | edit source]

In Cortex-A35 main processor mode, the FSBL TF-A is in charge of DDR controller initialization and of secure OS OP-TEE loading. This implies to configure RISAF4 secure and encrypted memory regions before doing secure code loading.

3.1.1. On STM32MP2 series[edit | edit source]

Click on How to.png to expand or collapse the legend...

Domain Peripheral Boot time allocation Comment How to.png
Instance Cortex-A35
secure
(ROM code)
Cortex-A35
secure
(TF-A BL2)
Cortex-A35
non-secure
(U-Boot)
Security RISAF RISAF1
RISAF2
RISAF4 FSBL TF-A configures Cortex-A secure and encrypted memory regions
RISAF5

3.2. Runtime assignment[edit | edit source]

In Cortex-A35 main processor mode, the access rights of the different memory regions are configured by OP-TEE before starting the execution of the firmware running on the other execution contexts.

3.2.1. On STM32MP25x lines More info.png[edit | edit source]

Click on How to.png to expand or collapse the legend...

Domain Peripheral Runtime allocation Comment How to.png
Instance Cortex-A35
secure
(OP-TEE /
TF-A BL31)
Cortex-A35
non-secure
(Linux)
Cortex-M33
secure
(TF-M)
Cortex-M33
non-secure
(STM32Cube)
Cortex-M0+
Warning.png
(STM32Cube)
Security RISAF RISAF1 OP-TEE OP-TEE configures all regions
RISAF2 OP-TEE OP-TEE configures all regions
RISAF4 OP-TEE OP-TEE configures all regions except its own
RISAF5 OP-TEE OP-TEE configures all regions

4. Software frameworks and drivers[edit | edit source]

Below are listed the software frameworks and drivers managing the RISAF peripheral for the embedded software components listed in the above tables.

5. How to assign and configure the peripheral[edit | edit source]

The STM32CubeMX graphical tool proposes an interface to configure the different RISAF memory regions .
It is possible to select for each region:

  • the security level
  • the privilege level
  • if the region is encrypted or not (depends on RISAF capability)
  • the authorized CIDs in read and write

The STM32CubeMX will generate associated device tree configuration for the FSBL and secure OS running on the TDCID processor.

6. References[edit | edit source]