Thermal maps based HT detection using spatial projection transformation

Abstract

Hardware Trojan (HT) is increasingly becoming a serious problem in the information security field. Compared to other countermeasures, thermal maps based detection can mitigate process variation (PV) and have a higher accuracy. However, HT cannot be differentiated from the others directly from the original thermal maps. Therefore, in this study, the authors first propose a general HT detection framework based on difference temperature matrix, and introduce the PV mitigation mechanism. Then, they demonstrate how principal component analysis can implement spatial projection transformation and expose HT signal. Finally, they introduce their experimental setup and design, and then validate their countermeasure with Xilinx field programmable gate arrays which are configured with the pure AES circuit and the infected AES circuits. The power proportions (PPs) of HTs in the different infected AES circuits are various. The experimental results indicate that their proposed countermeasure can clearly detect HT with 0.14% small PP.