MERO: A Statistical Approach for Hardware Trojan Detection

  • Authors:
  • Rajat Subhra Chakraborty;Francis Wolff;Somnath Paul;Christos Papachristou;Swarup Bhunia

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA 44106;Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA 44106;Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA 44106;Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA 44106;Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA 44106

  • Venue:
  • CHES '09 Proceedings of the 11th International Workshop on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems
  • Year:
  • 2009

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

In order to ensure trusted in---field operation of integrated circuits, it is important to develop efficient low---cost techniques to detect malicious tampering (also referred to as Hardware Trojan ) that causes undesired change in functional behavior. Conventional post--- manufacturing testing, test generation algorithms and test coverage metrics cannot be readily extended to hardware Trojan detection. In this paper, we propose a test pattern generation technique based on multiple excitation of rare logic conditions at internal nodes. Such a statistical approach maximizes the probability of inserted Trojans getting triggered and detected by logic testing, while drastically reducing the number of vectors compared to a weighted random pattern based test generation. Moreover, the proposed test generation approach can be effective towards increasing the sensitivity of Trojan detection in existing side---channel approaches that monitor the impact of a Trojan circuit on power or current signature. Simulation results for a set of ISCAS benchmarks show that the proposed test generation approach can achieve comparable or better Trojan detection coverage with about 85% reduction in test length on average over random patterns.