Benchmarking Advanced Security Closure of Physical Layouts: ISPD 2023 Contest

Computer-Aided design (CAD) tools traditionally optimize "only'' for power, performance, and area (PPA). However, given the wide range of hardware-security threats that have emerged, future CAD flows must also incorporate techniques for designing secure and trustworthy integrated circuits (ICs). This is because threats that are not addressed during design time will inevitably be exploited in the field, where system vulnerabilities induced by ICs are almost impossible to fix. However, there is currently little experience for designing secure ICs within the CAD community. This contest seeks to actively engage with the community to close this gap. The theme is security closure of physical layouts, that is, hardening the physical layouts at design time against threats that are executed post-design time. Acting as security engineers, contest participants will proactively analyse and fix the vulnerabilities of benchmark layouts in a blue-Team approach. Benchmarks and submissions are based on the generic DEF format and related files. This contest is focused on the threat of Trojans, with challenging aspects for physical design in general and for hindering Trojan insertion in particular. For one, layouts are based on the ASAP7 library and rules are strict, e.g., no DRC issues and no timing violations are allowed at all. In the alpha/qualifying round, submissions are evaluated using first-order metrics focused on exploitable placement and routing resources, whereas in the final round, submissions are thoroughly evaluated (red-Teamed) through actual insertion of different Trojans.