Systems and methods are disclosed for providing secure access to a non-volatile random access memory. One such method comprises sending an unlock password to a non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) in response to a trusted boot program executing on a system on chip (SoC). The NVRAM compares the unlock password to a pass gate value provisioned in the NVRAM. If the unlock password matches the pass gate value, a pass gate is unlocked to enable the SoC to access a non-volatile cell array in the NVRAM.