Securing Programmable Analog ICs Against Piracy
Mohamed Elshamy1, Alhassan Sayed1,2, Marie-Minerve Louërat1, Amine Rhouni1, Hassan Aboushady1 and Haralampos-G. Stratigopoulos1
1Sorbonne Université, CNRS, LIP6, Paris, France
2Minia University, Minia, Egypt
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we demonstrate a security approach for the class of highly-programmable analog Integrated Circuits (ICs) that can be used as a countermeasure for unauthorized chip use and piracy. The approach relies on functionality locking, i.e. a lock mechanism is introduced into the design such that unless the correct key is provided the functionality breaks. We show that for highly-programmable analog ICs the programmable fabric can naturally be used as the lock mechanism. We demonstrate the approach on a multi-standard RF receiver with configuration settings of 64-bit words.
