Methods for Protecting Against Piracy of Integrated Circuits

Techniques are provided for reducing the likelihood of piracy of integrated circuit design using combinational circuit locking system and activation protocol based on public-key cryptography. Every integrated circuit is to be activated with an external key, which can only be generated by an authenticator, such as the circuit designer. During circuit design, register transfer level (RTL) descriptions of the IC design are embedded with combinational logic based on a master key applied by the authenticator. That combinational logic renders at least one module of the RTL description locked, i.e., encrypted. The completed circuit design from the authenticator is sent to a fabrication lab with the combinationally locked modules. After fabrication, the circuit can only be activated when the authenticator sends an appropriate key that is used by the circuit to unlock the locked portions and thereby activate the circuit.

Attached files:


Patents:
US 20,100,284,539

Inventor(s): ROY JARROD A [US]; KOUSHANFAR FARINAZ [US]; MARKOV IGOR L [US]

Type of Offer: Licensing



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