A system architecture, processor, and communication protocol for secure implants

Secure and energy-efficient communication between Implantable Medical Devices (IMDs) and authorized external users is attracting increasing attention these days. However, there currently exists no systematic approach to the problem, while solutions from neighboring fields, such as wireless sensor networks, are not directly transferable due to the peculiarities of the IMD domain. This work describes an original, efficient solution for secure IMD communication. A new implant system architecture is proposed, where security and main-implant functionality are made completely decoupled by running the tasks onto two separate cores. Wireless communication goes through a custom security ASIP, called SISC (Smart-Implant Security Core), which runs an energy-efficient security protocol. The security core is powered by RF-harvested energy until it performs external-reader authentication, providing an elegant defense mechanism agai