Nvidia patents circuit to stop hackers from crashing chips with voltage spikes
Nvidia describes a safety circuit that watches for sudden, dangerous drops in a chip's power supply. It uses two separate systems to spot these glitches, ensuring the chip shuts down safely even if the main power reference fails during an attack.
In the filing’s own words
A circuit includes a bandgap circuit configured to generate multiple reference voltages. A first voltage glitching detection circuit utilizes a first one of the reference voltages and a first power rail to generate a first reset signal in response to a voltage glitching attack on the first power rail, and a second voltage glitching detection circuit operates independently of the reference voltages to generate a second reset signal in response to the voltage glitching attack on the first power rail.
What exactly they claim (claim 1)
1. A protection circuit comprising: a bandgap circuit configured to generate one or more reference voltages from a power rail; a first voltage glitch detection circuit configured to utilize at least one of the one or more reference voltages to generate a first reset signal in response to a voltage condition on the power rail; a second voltage glitch detection circuit comprising a self-referencing detector configured to generate a second reset signal independently of the one or more reference voltages; the protection circuit configured such that when the voltage condition causes a collapse of the bandgap circuit, the second voltage glitch detection circuit provides continued detection of the voltage condition when the first voltage glitch detection circuit becomes unreliable due to instability of the one or more reference voltages.
Facts
- Company
- Nvidia (NVIDIA Corp.)
- Official title
- Circuit to Protect Against Multi-Rail Voltage Glitching Attacks
- Publication number
- US20260267386A1
- Application number
- 19657629
- Filed
- Apr 24, 2026
- Published
- Sep 10, 2026
- Inventors
- 9
- Claims
- 19
Classified under
G06F 1/28 Physics & computingG05F 1/468 Physics & computingG06F 1/24 Physics & computingMore from Nvidia in Chips & hardware
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Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.