Blockchain and time-delay based hardware Trojan detection

Abstract

Nowadays, various electronic devices bring convenience to people’s life and work, which is inseparable from the development of microelectronics technology. The IC chip is the core part of these devices like brains control their logical functions operating normally. With the economic globalisation and the competition among the chip design companies, there may be many parties involved in the design process of the IC chip, which makes the IC design have more vulnerabilities and brings potential threats to the IC. According to that, ensuring that the original circuits design of the IC does not tamper with the malicious circuits (e.g. Hardware Trojan) during the IC design process is essential. In this thesis, we propose a novel multi-path Hardware Trojan detection based on path delay and blockchain technology, which mainly targets the malicious behaviour of Hardware Trojan insertion in the IC design process. First of all, during transferring design files in the IC design project, the relevant design modules will be checked and compared through the detector and comparator designed in this thesis to confirm whether there is a Hardware Trojan in the module and its modified location. At the same time, during the design file transferring, the blockchain-based tracking system will record the relevant information (e.g. personal information of the designer, the checksum of the IC design file). Suppose the existence of a Hardware Trojan is detected, then through the blockchain-based tracking system. In that case, the relevant information can be accurately found, such as the target design files and the person in charge of the part of the modified circuit. Compared with other path delay detection methods, this multi-path Hardware Trojan detection method designed in this thesis can accurately find the location of the tampered circuits part and the relevant designer in charge. It can modify and restore the suitable design files in time. Therefore, this detection method can solve the problem of Hardware Trojan insertion in a targeted manner. In the IC design process, this detection method saves the time cost of locating and correcting the circuits inserted in Hardware Trojan and solves some vulnerabilities (e.g. malicious designer) of Hardware Trojan inserted in IC.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Mark Zwolinski: orcid.org/0000-0002-2230-625X

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