It allows to limit the number of flash programming cycles, thus preventing the production of unrestricted quantities by third parties in case of external production.

“SEGGER has responded to increased demand by industrial customers for such a feature, which will help to keep control of the programming process in outsourced production lines. In addition it mitigates the damage, if service production devices get lost, by limiting the potential abuse”, said Dirk Akemann, Marketing Manager at SEGGER.

By help of the “Authorized Flashing” feature, the customer can set a maximum number of programming cycles, thereby limiting the number of devices that the firmware can be transferred to.

Companies, which have contracted out production, can thus protect themselves against the third party producing more than the targeted number of devices and selling them on their own account. This is a common problem in third-party production. With "Authorized Flashing", the production facility cannot change the configuration.

Once the pre-defined number is exhausted, the Flasher must be re-programmed to start a new programming cycle. This has to be carried out by the owner of the Intellectual Property directly on the Flasher.

As the new capability hides the IP owner’s firmware on the Flasher, this is also a protection against manipulation.The “Authorized Flashing” feature has been added to most Flasher models: Flasher ARM, Flasher RX, Flasher PPC, Flasher PRO and Flasher Portable. Developers who already use the latest generation of one of these Flashers will receive a firmware update adding the new feature.

More information on “Authorized Flashing” is available at:
https://www.segger.com/authorized-flashing.html