US Patent 10489609 Restricting programmable integrated circuits to specific applications

Disclosed approaches for limiting use or a programmable IC involve a provider of programmable ICs generating, using one or more private keys of the provider, one or more signed configuration bitstreams from one or more circuit designs received from a customer. The provider changes the general purpose programmable IC into an application programmable IC that can only be programmed by the one or more signed configuration bitstreams. The application programmable IC and the one or more signed configuration bitstreams are provided from the provider to the customer.