Shielding CE Hardware Against Reverse-Engineering Attacks Through Functional Locking [Hardware Matters

Abstract

The surging design productivity of modern consumer electronics (CE) devices has only been possible due to the employment of reusable intellectual property (IP) cores in its hardware design. However, the IP core design process is vulnerable to threats in the design flow such as reverse-engineering attacks that aim to clone (and pirate) or insert malicious Trojan logic in the design netlist. Thus, the key is protecting the IP design netlist from unwanted access. This article proposes an IP core with a low-cost functional locking methodology that safeguards the design netlist from rogue elements in design flow intending attacks. The presented approach achieves cost reduction of functionally locked IP core design and enhanced security against reverse-engineering attacks.