TY - GEN
T1 - Resolving the trilemma in logic encryption
AU - Zhou, Hai
AU - Rezaei, Amin
AU - Shen, Yuanqi
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is partially supported by NSF under CNS-1441695, CCF-1533656, and CNS-1651695.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 IEEE.
PY - 2019/11
Y1 - 2019/11
N2 - Logic encryption, a method to lock a circuit from unauthorized use unless the correct key is provided, is the most important technique in hardware IP protection. However, with the discovery of the SAT attack, all traditional logic encryption algorithms are broken. New algorithms after the SAT attack are all vulnerable to structural analysis unless a provable obfuscation is applied to the locked circuit. But there is no provable logic obfuscation available, in spite of some vague resorting to logic resynthesis. In this paper, we formulate and discuss a trilemma in logic encryption among locking robustness, structural security, and encryption efficiency, showing that pre-SAT approaches achieve only structural security and encryption efficiency, and post-SAT approaches achieve only locking robustness and encryption efficiency. There is also a dilemma between query complexity and error number in locking. We first develop a theory and solution to the dilemma in locking between query complexity and error number. Then, we provide a provable obfuscation solution to the dilemma between structural security and locking robustness. We finally present and discuss some results towards the resolution of the trilemma in logic encryption.
AB - Logic encryption, a method to lock a circuit from unauthorized use unless the correct key is provided, is the most important technique in hardware IP protection. However, with the discovery of the SAT attack, all traditional logic encryption algorithms are broken. New algorithms after the SAT attack are all vulnerable to structural analysis unless a provable obfuscation is applied to the locked circuit. But there is no provable logic obfuscation available, in spite of some vague resorting to logic resynthesis. In this paper, we formulate and discuss a trilemma in logic encryption among locking robustness, structural security, and encryption efficiency, showing that pre-SAT approaches achieve only structural security and encryption efficiency, and post-SAT approaches achieve only locking robustness and encryption efficiency. There is also a dilemma between query complexity and error number in locking. We first develop a theory and solution to the dilemma in locking between query complexity and error number. Then, we provide a provable obfuscation solution to the dilemma between structural security and locking robustness. We finally present and discuss some results towards the resolution of the trilemma in logic encryption.
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U2 - 10.1109/ICCAD45719.2019.8942076
DO - 10.1109/ICCAD45719.2019.8942076
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85077803603
T3 - IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design, Digest of Technical Papers, ICCAD
BT - 2019 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design, ICCAD 2019 - Digest of Technical Papers
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 38th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design, ICCAD 2019
Y2 - 4 November 2019 through 7 November 2019
ER -