A signal processing circuit capable of preventing illicit copies, preventing
the
circuit from being unable to discriminate a plurality of cipher mode and unable
to decipher, and correctly decipher received data at the reception side, configured
to be provided with a cipher mode continuity discrimination circuit which confirms
the continuity of a cipher mode at the time of reading transmission data from an
FIFO when transmitting a plurality of packets, stops the transmission when a discontinuity
is confirmed even if there is room in a band enabling transmission in the transmission
cycle of the 1394 standard, and instructs a link core to transmit the packet enciphered
by a different cipher key at the next cycle, so that only the data enciphered by
one cipher mode is transmitted within one cycle of the 1394 standards, and the
data enciphered by a different cipher mode is transmitted in the next cycle.