Survey on Applications of Formal Methods in Reverse Engineering and Intellectual Property Protection

Abstract

Recent years have seen a growth in the use of algorithmic techniques, and especially formal methods, in reverse engineering. Depending on the motivation and requirements of the attacker, algorithms can be used for reconstructing circuit netlists, extracting a higher-level description of a circuit from unstructured sea-of-gates, or resynthesizing the Boolean function of a logic circuit from examples. At each step of this process, formal methods can be leveraged. In this survey, we review some of the applications of formal methods in reverse engineering and in IP protection.