Enhanced Security Features for Commodity Integrated Circuits

COTS IC manufacturing technologies are capable of deployment to spaced-based vehicles. Their performance levels, degree of innate rad-hardness, and cost-effective yields make them compelling for U.S. strategic launch vehicles. It is of concern that some of the ‘generation-N’ COTS IC fabrication steps are moving outside of U.S. jurisdictional control. It is crucial that secure data and algorithms on these ICs cannot be compromised through reverse engineering and possibly misused by adversaries. Micro-RDC proposes further development of its anti-tamper by design (ATBD) stealthy key storage and stealthy micro-store encryptions, that effectively cannot be reverse engineered, having sufficient entropy and autonomy so as to prevent any key compromises from exploiting other systems or even further levels within the same IC or system. Micro-RDC proposes a phase I effort focused on the following four (4) development objectives: (1) continue to leverage overt technologies such as complex LFSR-based ciphers to scramble code-stores, structured ASICs, and other digital circuitry; (2) apply similar cipher techniques to scramble and obfuscate chip IOs; (3) develop stealthy keys and ciphers, and (4) demonstrate the kinds of stealthy key and cipher technologies that an adversary might deploy in low-cost COTS capabilities, providing the opportunity to develop suitable counter-attacks.