Secure and Trusted SoC: Challenges and Emerging Solutions

Over the ages, hardware components, platforms and supply chains have been considered secure and trustworthy. However, recent discoveries and reports on security vulnerabilities and attacks in microchips and circuits violate this hardware root of trust. System-on-Chip (SoC) design based on reusable hardware intellectual property (IP) is now a pervasive design practice in the industry due to the dramatic reduction in design/verification cost and time. This growing reliance on reusable pre-verified hardware IPs and a wide array of design automation tools during SoC design, often acquired from untrusted 3rd party vendors, coupled with fabrication in untrusted offshore foundries severely affects the security and trustworthiness of SoCs used in diverse applications. This paper presents an overview of the various security challenges in the SoC design cycle and possible solutions for protection.