Validation of ip security and trust

Abstract

System-on-chip (SoC) designers may have to outsource Intellectual Properties (IPs) to meet time-to-market constraints. The IPs may be collected from untrusted third parties and it raises major security concerns. An adversary can embed malicious components that are hard to detect. However, when the malicious components are triggered, the correct functionality of the design is deviated and critical information such as secret keys may be leaked. Therefore, it is vital to validate IPs from security aspects alongside with functionality, timing, and other requirements. In this chapter, we review the existing security validation methods for soft IP cores using a combination of simulation-based validation and formal methods.