Securing Programmable Analog ICs Against Piracy
- Resource Type
- Conference
- Authors
- Elshamy, Mohamed; Sayed, Alhassan; Louerat, Marie-Minerve; Rhouni, Amine; Aboushady, Hassan; Stratigopoulos, Haralampos-G.
- Source
- 2020 Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE). :61-66 Mar, 2020
- Subject
- Communication, Networking and Broadcast Technologies
Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Computing and Processing
Robotics and Control Systems
Calibration
Programming
Security
System-on-chip
Analog circuits
Tuning
- Language
- ISSN
- 1558-1101
In this paper, we demonstrate a security approach for the class of highly-programmable analog Integrated Circuits (ICs) that can be used as a countermeasure for unauthorized chip use and piracy. The approach relies on functionality locking, i.e. a lock mechanism is introduced into the design such that unless the correct key is provided the functionality breaks. We show that for highly-programmable analog ICs the programmable fabric can naturally be used as the lock mechanism. We demonstrate the approach on a multi-standard RF receiver with configuration settings of 64-bit words.