Non Destructive Trusted FPGA Verification

Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) can provide electronic system designs with a high degree of relatively inexpensive customization. Unfortunately, the fabrication facilities are located in untrusted facilities. This prevents their use in applications requiring a high degree of safety or security. Hidden functionality could potentially be inserted during manufacture. These Trojans can be used for many malicious purposes including: denial of service, data exfiltration, bypassing security, and reducing reliability of critical systems.GrammaTechs solution takes advantage of FPGA architecture and its re-programmability to produce robust tests which do not rely on sensitive supply current analysis. The approach includes new techniques which will address the limitation in current hardware Trojan detection methods.During Phase I, GrammaTech developed a prototype hybrid Trojan detection system and demonstrated detection algorithms that improve upon the ability to detect even the most subtle of Trojans. The Phase II, effort will augment the results of the Phase I with the testing of a larger population of devices and the testing of Trojan-infected devices. Additional data analysis techniques will be applied to further enhance the detection sensitivity. The result will be a Trojan detection system that can be adapted to verify trust in different FPGA devices.