Public key protocol for usage-based licensing of FPGA IP cores

Application developers are now turning to field-programmable gate array (FPGA) devices for solutions of small to medium volume due to its post-fabrication flexibility. Unfortunately, the existing upfront intellectual property (IP) licensing model for FPGA based third-party IP cores is economically unattractive. The IP bitstreams in transaction are also vulnerable to cloning, misappropriation and reverse engineering. This paper proposes a secure pay-per-use licensing protocol to avoid complicated communication flow and high implementation cost, while preventing the IP rights from being compromised or abused by all parties involved. The protocol guarantees the confidentiality and integrity of the security-critical components and forbids the implementation of licensed IP cores on gray market or counterfeit chips. The public-crypto based core installation module used to self-configure the licensed IP cores occupies only limited FPGA fabrics temporarily.