Network on Chip: A review on data security and privacy issues

Abstract

A network on chip (NoC) is an integrated circuit with a network-based communication subsystem. NoC helps to achieve better throughput in multi-core chips. The NoC is a novel method to solve the scalability problems that System on Chips (SoC) have. NoC is capable of handling a large number of applications that require security. As the NoC is visible to all communications in SoCs, and its increased usage and the chip’s distributed nature has made it a goal for future security attacks. Because of the increased complexity, any of the Intellectual property (IP) cores embedded on SoCs are being pushed to be outsourced to different third-party suppliers in order to satisfy the restrictions on time-to-market. The third-party suppliers can be trusted or untrusted. The untrusted IPs integrated on the same IP cores from the trusted vendors can degrade the performance or tamper with the packets. So one of the major problems in this area is how to protect the data we are sending through the chip. In this paper, firstly, the concepts and features of NoC are introduced and then provides the advantages and challenges of different security mechanisms used to protect the contents and to detect the threats in NoC. This paper would be helpful for the study of NoC security, vulnerabilities, and security threats.