US Patent 8448256 Secure partitioning of programmable devices

According to an embodiment, a programmable logic device includes a plurality of logic blocks, memory and a logic unit. The logic blocks are grouped into one or more partitions. The memory stores authentication and partition information uploaded to the programmable logic device prior to partition programming. The logic unit authenticates programming access to the one or more partitions based on the authentication information and controls programming of the one or more partitions based on the partition information.