References to assemblies with shared names (AssemblyRefs) contain a "token" that represents the public key used to generate the shared name in the referenced assembly. This token is used at bind time to help locate the desired assembly.
A development tool obtains the token for a public key using either StrongNameTokenFromAssembly or StrongNameTokenFromPublicKey.
This token is then passed as the originator parameter to IMetadataAssemblyEmit::DefineAssemblyRef when the AssemblyRef is defined.