Hardware Security: Circuit Obfuscation and IC Protection in Modern Supply Chains

Abstract

The integrated circuit (IC) supply chain has undergone significant globalization over the past decade, introducing critical security vulnerabilities that threaten the integrity of hardware systems. This research paper addresses the emerging challenges of hardware security through the lens of circuit obfuscation and intellectual property protection. With the proliferation of third-party fabrication services and soft/hard IP cores in system-on-chip (SoC) development, the potential for malicious hardware Trojans, counterfeiting, and reverse engineering attacks has escalated dramatically. This paper presents a comprehensive examination of hardware security methodologies, including hardware Trojan detection techniques, formal verification approaches through proof-carrying hardware (PCH), logic locking mechanisms, and the utilization of physical-unclonable functions (PUFs) as security primitives. Additionally, we propose and evaluate a cube stripping-based functional analysis attack on state-of-the-art logic locking algorithms. Our experimental results on benchmark circuits demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, achieving significant improvements in area and delay optimization compared to conventional methods. The paper concludes with insights into emerging trends in hardware security, including hardware-assisted cybersecurity solutions and the application of novel transistor technologies for enhanced security primitives.