Title: Research and implementation on a Trojan detection approach based on sensor path delay for golden-free chips

Authors: Zhongxue Yang; Yiqin Bao

Addresses: School of Information Engineering, Nanjing XiaoZhuang University, No. 3601, Hongjing Avenue, Jiangning District, Nanjing 211171, China ' School of Information Engineering, Nanjing XiaoZhuang University, No. 3601, Hongjing Avenue, Jiangning District, Nanjing 211171, China

Abstract: Currently, integrated circuit chips have penetrated various fields of modern technology, playing an increasingly important role in promoting technology development. At the same time, attacks against chips are becoming increasingly common. Hardware Trojan refers to designing, manufacturing, or packaging a chip, where tiny circuits are embedded and triggered under specific circumstances, resulting in chip functionality failure or information leakage. Many existing Trojan detection technologies rely on gold IC (GIC) during the integrated circuit (IC) certification phase. Still, in most cases, there is no GIC, making it difficult to detect Trojans. This article uses a hardware Trojan detection approach based on sensor path delay for golden-free chips to capture changes in the logical structure and fluctuations in the process within the bare chip in the design, create a unique fingerprint of the IC, and then compare and analyse relevant sensor data to mine the Trojan chip. The practical application results show that in the chip testing of Model JL300 series high-precision multifunctional intelligent instruments, the product yield has increased by 9.12%, and good application results have been achieved.

Keywords: hardware security; hardware Trojan; Gold IC; path delay; Trojan detection.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2023.133242

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2023 Vol.42 No.4, pp.238 - 247

Received: 09 May 2023
Accepted: 11 May 2023

Published online: 03 Sep 2023 *

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