Abstract
Dynamically reconfigurable hardware combines hardware performance with software-like flexibility and finds increasing use in networked systems. The capability to load hardware modules at runtime provides these systems with an unparalleled degree of adaptivity but at the same time poses new challenges for security and safety. In this paper, we elaborate on the presentation of proof carrying hardware (PCH) as a novel approach to reconfigurable system security. PCH takes a key concept from software security, known as proof-carrying code, into the reconfigurable hardware domain. We outline the PCH concept and discuss runtime combinational equivalence checking as a first online verification problem applying the concept. We present a prototype tool flow and experimental results demonstrating the feasibility and potential of the PCH approach.
Highlights
Reconfigurable hardware combines hardware performance with software-like flexibility and finds increasing use in networked systems
This proof of concept tool flow is a simplified version of the scenario shown in Figure 3 and serves to validate whether it is possible to shift the verification workload from the consumer to the producer. It is neither necessary nor the intention of this paper to verify all steps of the production, for example, FPGA backend synthesis tools, to check for correct transmission or to completely implement the consumer’s functions
We present proof-carrying hardware (PCH) as a novel approach to reconfigurable system security
Summary
Reconfigurable hardware combines hardware performance with software-like flexibility and finds increasing use in networked systems. The novel contribution of this paper is the presentation and elaboration of proof-carrying hardware (PCH) as an approach to reconfigurable system security, substantiated with an in-depth depiction of a prototype tool flow including experimental results. The consumer is enabled to only run verified hardware modules without having to trust the producer or rely on a secured transmission process or having to compute a formal proof of security features. This paper extends our previous conference publication [3] by presenting an extended discussion of the PCH concept and a more elaborated CEC tool flow, using more test functions to demonstrate the feasibility of the PCH concept, and discussing more detailed and conclusive measurements including, for example, memory requirements.
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