STEALTH - Secure and Trusted Analog Hardware Technology

Project Description:

While extensive research efforts have been expended over the last decade in understanding trust and security threat scenarios in digital ICs, as well as in developing prevention, countermeasure, and detection solutions, the topic remains largely unexplored for their analog counterparts. Analog ICs are considered nowadays as the weakest link in warranting the global security policy for the entire electronic system. 

This project concerns hardware trust and security aspects specifically for analog integrated circuits (ICs). The project seeks to understand the vulnerability of analog ICs to security breaches, as well as to propose remedies and methodologies toward designing, fabricating, and deploying trusted and secure analog ICs.

More specifically, the project envisions developing a large portfolio of obfuscation methodologies for equipping analog ICs with a capability that prevents reverse engineering and counterfeiting.

The developed obfuscation methodologies will range from generic ones, which are virtually applicable to any circuit class, to circuit class-specific ones, which are applicable to all architectures within a specific circuit class. Comprehensive metrics will be developed to quantify the security protection level achieved, the intrusiveness into the design, the incurred area overhead, etc.