Comprehensive detection of counterfeit ICs via on-chip sensor and post-fabrication authentication policy

Abstract

Counterfeit integrated circuits (ICs) have posed a major security and safety threat on commercial and mission-critical systems. In this paper, we propose to develop a comprehensive counterfeit ICs detection and prevention strategy, consisting of an innovative multi-functional on-chip sensor and a related post-fabrication authentication methodology. We target at many counterfeit ICs including the recycled/remarked/out-of-spec ICs, as well as cloned and over-produced ICs. First, the new sensor consists of antifuse memory and aging sensors to reduce reference circuit related area overhead of those sensor circuits. Second, the new sensor combines both the ring-oscillator based aging sensor with recently proposed electromigration(EM)-based aging sensor so that it can be effective for estimation of both short and long period time of chip usage. Third, on top of the new sensor, we propose a new post-fabrication authentication methodology to detect and prevent non-defective counterfeit ICs. Simulation results show the advantage of the proposed multi-functional sensor against existing on-chip sensors in terms of functionality, detection coverage and usage time estimation range and accuracy.