Management of the interaction between security and operating system power management unit

1. A method of controlling operation of a processing device in a first power mode or in a second power mode, the processing device having a public execution environment and a separate secure execution environment, wherein at least the secure execution environment is configured to be requested to execute instructions and to execute the instructions, the method comprising:

upon detection of a switch between the first and second power modes, setting in the public execution environment a value of a shared variable to an initial value;

upon detection of a request to execute instructions in the secure execution environment, updating the value of the shared variable to a value different from the initial value; and

reading a current value of the shared variable and causing the processing device to operate in the first power mode or in the second power mode depending at least on the current value of the shared variable.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the updating of the value of the shared variable is performed prior to the secure execution environment executing the instructions.

3. The method of claim 1 :

wherein the value of the shared variable can be set at least to a first and to a second value, the first value being the initial value; and

wherein the value of the shared variable is updated to the second value upon detection of a request to execute instructions in the secure execution environment.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the shared variable is a Boolean variable.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the value of the shared variable is an integer, and is incremented upon detecting a request to execute instructions in the secure execution environment.

6. The method of claim 1 :

wherein the value of the shared variable can be set to a plurality of possible integer values; and

wherein the value of the shared variable is updated with one of the possible integer values upon detecting a request to execute instructions in the secure execution environment.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the request to execute instructions comprises a synchronous call.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the request to execute instructions comprises an asynchronous call.

9. A processing device, comprising one or more processing circuits operative to switch between a first power mode of operation and a second power mode of operation, and to provide a public execution environment and a separate secure execution environment, the one or more processors being configured via programming to:

operate the secure execution environment to:

receive a request to execute instructions;

execute the instructions based on the received request;

upon detection of a switch between the first and second power modes of operation, set in the public execution environment a value of a shared variable to an initial value;

upon detection of the request to execute instructions in the secure execution environment, update the value of the shared variable to a value different from the initial value; and

operate the public execution environment to read a current value of the shared variable and decide whether to make the processing device operate in the first power mode or in the second power mode of operation according to at least the read value of the shared variable.

10. The processing device of claim 9 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured via programming to operate the secure execution environment to update the value of the shared variable prior to executing the instructions.

11. The processing device of claim 9 , wherein one or more processors are further configured via programming to operate the secure execution environment to:

set the value of the shared variable to either a first or a second value, the first value being the initial value; and

update the value of the shared variable to the second value upon detection of a request to execute instructions in the secure execution environment.

12. The processing device of claim 9 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured via programming to operate the secure execution environment to:

increment the value of the shared variable upon detection of a request to execute instructions in the secure execution environment;

wherein the value of the shared variable is an integer.

13. The processing device of claim 9 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured via programming to operate the secure execution environment to receive a request to execute instructions with either an asynchronous call or a synchronous call.

14. A computer program product stored in a non-transitory computer-readable medium, the computer program product comprising software instructions for a processing device having first and second power modes of operation, and having a public execution environment and a separate secure execution environment, wherein execution of the software instructions by one or more processing circuits of the processing device configures the processing device to:

upon detection of a switch between the first and second power modes, set in the public execution environment a value of a shared variable to an initial value;

upon detection of a request of to execute instructions in the secure execution environment, update the value of the shared variable to a value different from the initial value; and

read a current value of the shared variable and cause the processing device to operate in the first power mode or in the second power mode depending at least on the current value of the shared variable.