SOC security design; fast emerging new area in VLSI design

SOC security design is fast emerging as another area of VLSI design, where expertise is evolving to protect the sensitive data in the physical part of the chip from hackers. Hackers may access the internal parts or the circuitry of the chip to make it malfunction or to access the identity and other such security sensitive data. If the security aspects of SoC design is not taken care, it will be difficult to prevent hacking on the physical hardware which includes both chip and board, the only solution in the case of hardware security breach, is to replace the physical device, which is expensive. SOC designers adopting various techniques in processing and storing the sensitive data inside the chip. The attacks on SOC is classified as active and passive. People use sophisticated attacks such as advanced optics and shape recognition programs. The physical layer of communication function inside a chip is more prone to attacks. The Security is also broken by doing power analysis of signals, the power consumption pattern is studied to know the transmitted code in interconnects and buses. To make SOC design more secure, various techniques have evolved and has become an interesting research area. Below we list some of the well-known techniques adopted in VLSI chip design: 1. The most basic thing to secure chip is to shield the device to maximum level from electromagnetic ...