Towards provably-secure performance locking

Monir Zaman, Abhrajit Sengupta, Danqing Liu, Ozgur Sinanoglu, Yiorgos Makris, Jeyavijayan J.V. Rajendran

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Locking the functionality of an integrated circuit (IC) thwarts attacks such as intellectual property (IP) piracy, hardware Trojans, overbuilding, and counterfeiting. Although functional locking has been extensively investigated, locking the performance of an IC has been little explored. In this paper, we develop provably-secure performance locking, where only on applying the correct key the IC shows superior performance; for an incorrect key, the performance of the IC degrades significantly. This leads to a new business model, where the companies can design a single IC capable of different performances for different users. We develop mathematical definitions of security and theoretically, and experimentally prove the security against the state-of-the-art-attacks. We implemented performance locking on a FabScalar microprocessor, achieving a degradation in instructions per clock cycle (IPC) of up to 77% on applying an incorrect key, with an overhead of 0.6%, 0.2%, and 0% for area, power, and delay, respectively.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 2018 Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition, DATE 2018
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages1592-1597
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9783981926316
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 19 2018
Event2018 Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition, DATE 2018 - Dresden, Germany
Duration: Mar 19 2018Mar 23 2018

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 2018 Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition, DATE 2018
Volume2018-January

Other

Other2018 Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition, DATE 2018
Country/TerritoryGermany
CityDresden
Period3/19/183/23/18

Keywords

  • Boolean satisfiability (SAT)
  • FabScalar
  • IP piracy
  • performance locking

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Hardware and Architecture
  • Software
  • Information Systems and Management
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality

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