Hardware property checker for run-time Hardware Trojan detection

Abstract

Nowadays, Hardware Trojans (HTs) become a real threat because of IC design and fabrication outsourcing trend. In the state of the art, many efforts were devoted to counter this threat, especially at netlist level. However, some clever HTs are actually a combination between a hardware and a software vulnerability, which, together, allow an exploitation. In this paper, we intend to detect such advanced HT, by resorting to a run-time detection. This method consists in identifying some high-level and critical behavioral invariants, and by checking them during the circuit operation. The assertion and Property Specification Language (PSL) is used to describe the properties to be checked. Then, a Hardware Property Checker (HPC) is created and integrated in the IC in order to verify these properties in runtime. We discuss how to define the critical properties for HPC. We also explain how this method is complementary with others, especially how the Hardware Checker can itself be protected against a tampering attempt. A case of study on LEON processor was performed to demonstrate the feasibility of this detection technique.