Technology for Trusted Circuits

The goal of this project is to protect DOD FPGA technology from malicious circuitry embedded in the FPGA device during manufacture. Most defense equipment contains some type of microelectronic device such as an application specific integrated circuit or a field programmable gate array. Due to the exponentially rising cost of microelectronics manufacturing and the lower demand for military-spec parts, many of these chips are commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) devices that are manufactured overseas even if the design is done within the United States of America. The possibility exists, therefore, that a skilled foreign attacker can modify the circuit between the original design tapeout and its fabrication. Such modifications might add a backdoor into the chip, create a “time-bomb” which disables or alters the device function after a set time, or release a virus or worm behind a network’s firewall. The goal of this Phase II SBIR project is to investigate methods of detecting such malicious circuitry. Our effort places particular emphasis on FPGA technology since the hardware-reconfigurable properties of FPGAs make them excellent and increasingly utilized solutions to military-specific computing needs. FPGA-based solutions under investigation also include advanced run-time reconfiguration technologies to determine chip trustworthiness and obfuscate chip function.