Low overhead design for improving hardware trojan detection efficiency

Abstract

Outsourcing of IC fabrication has increased the potential for altering the genuine design with the insertion of concealed circuits (hardware Trojans). A methodology for detecting hardware Trojans (HTs) that has been pursued recently is based on comparing the power and delay response of a genuine chip to the manufactured chip/device under test (DUT). However, the probability of detecting the HT remains small in many cases due to the low probability of activating the concealed circuits. This paper proposes a technique to increase HT activity during testing by inserting probability increase circuits (PICs) at critical points in the design. Preliminary results for a standard HT example show a reduction in time for HT activation of over 95% with modest increases in power, size, and delay overhead.