EAGER: Design and Exploration of Optical Nanoantenna Technology for Advanced IC Testing and Hardware Security

EAGER：用于先进IC测试和硬件安全的光学纳米天线技术的设计和探索

• 批准号: 1641018
• 负责人: Selim Unlu
• 金额: $ 15.02万
• 依托单位: Trustees of Boston University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-08-15 至 2019-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1641018&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAGER; Design; Exploration; Optical; Nanoantenna

Title: EAGER: Optical Nanoantenna: A Nanotechnology Solution for Advanced Integrated Circuit Testing and SecurityAbstractNon-technical: Today's integrated circuit (IC) chips are used in practically all consumer electronics, as well as in critical defense technologies and municipal support systems such as power and water supply services. To build these chips, state-of-the-art technologies are used that integrate billions of transistors on a single chip. Currently, we do not have the technological know-how for rapid testing of these billion-transistor chips. At the same time, the supply chain and development cycle of IC chips have become increasingly fragmented and global. These two factors, lack of inspection technology and uncertainty in the supply chain, have led to an enormous national security risk. The opportunities for enemies to insert malicious circuitry, termed hardware Trojans, into ICs embedded in critical infrastructure components to tamper with the control and functionality have never been greater. Therefore, there is a pressing need to develop radical and novel solutions for optical testing of current and future technologies and ensure the trustworthiness of ICs. The objective of this research is to explore a completely new paradigm using optical technology based on nanoscopic antennas and the associated measurement techniques that would enable rapid testing, debugging, and securing of IC chips. The expected research outcomes of this project include new knowledge and understanding at the intersection of nanoscale optics, integrated circuits, imaging, and pattern recognition that supports rapid and scalable IC inspection. On the educational front, the PIs plan to actively recruit and support women, under-represented minorities and undergraduate students to participate in this project. This project will provide a multi-disciplinary training environment along with international collaboration exposure for all the students involved in this project.Technical: Advanced IC technology using 16 nm and 14 nm nodes can integrate billions of transistors on a single chip, thus requiring sub-100 nm optical resolution for isolation of single transistor faults. The proposed research project aims to explore, evaluate and optimize a variety of optical nanoantenna structures and develop methodologies for embedding nanoantennas into the physical layout of individual standard CMOS cells and into the CMOS IC chip as a whole. These nanoantennas will be engineered to direct optical excitation to predetermined chip locations with nanometer accuracy. The interaction of optical excitation with nanoscale devices will be enhanced allowing for testing functional characteristics of ICs with sub-diffraction limited features. Furthermore, the nanoantennas will be designed to elicit unique optical scattering signatures that are highly sensitive to the smallest details of the standard cell geometry. Thus any tampering of the IC through malicious modification of standard cells would be easily detected. The researchers plan to demonstrate this optical watermarking technology in an IC chip designed using a commercial CMOS process. The proposed research will advance knowledge in the integration of optical nanoantennas with ICs, especially related to fabrication compatibility and design approaches as well as their interaction with surrounding circuitry. A successful completion of the proposed research would lead to a paradigm shift in IC chip testing and security.

标题：急切：光学纳米反滕纳：一种用于高级集成电路测试和SecurityAbstractnon-technical的纳米技术解决方案：实际上，当今的集成电路（IC）芯片实际上用于所有消费电子电子，以及关键的国防技术和关键的国防技术和电力和水源服务，例如电力和水源服务。为了构建这些芯片，使用了最先进的技术，可以将数十亿个晶体管在一个芯片上集成。目前，我们没有用于快速测试这些十亿晶体管芯片的技术知识。同时，IC芯片的供应链和开发周期变得越来越分散和全球。这两个因素（缺乏检查技术和供应链中的不确定性）导致了巨大的国家安全风险。敌人将恶意电路（称为硬件木马）插入嵌入关键基础架构组件中以篡改控制和功能的IC的机会从未有所更大。因此，迫切需要开发激进和新颖的解决方案，以对当前和未来技术进行光学测试，并确保IC的可信度。这项研究的目的是使用基于纳米天线的光学技术以及相关的测量技术来探索全新的范式，该技术将能够快速测试，调试和确保IC芯片的固定。该项目的预期研究成果包括在纳米级光学，集成电路，成像和模式识别的交集上进行的新知识和理解，这些识别支持快速可扩展的IC检查。在教育方面，PIS计划积极招募和支持妇女，代表性不足的少数民族和本科生参加该项目。该项目将为所有参与该项目的学生提供多学科培训环境以及国际合作曝光。技术：使用16 nm和14 nm节点的高级IC技术可以将数十亿个晶体管集成到单个芯片上，因此需要以下的单个晶体管隔离的光学分辨率。拟议的研究项目旨在探索，评估和优化各种光学纳米annna结构，并开发方法，以将纳米antennas嵌入单个标准CMOS细胞的物理布局中，并整个CMOS IC芯片中。这些纳米antennas将被设计为以纳米精度将光学激发引导到预定的芯片位置。光激发与纳米级设备的相互作用将增强，以便测试IC的功能特征，并具有限制性特征。此外，纳米antennas将设计用于引起对标准细胞几何最小细节高度敏感的独特光学散射特征。因此，通过恶意修饰标准细胞对IC的任何篡改都将很容易被检测到。研究人员计划在使用商业CMOS工艺设计的IC芯片中证明这种光学水印技术。拟议的研究将促进将光学纳米antennas与ICS整合在一起的知识，尤其是与制造兼容性和设计方法以及它们与周围电路的相互作用有关的知识。拟议研究的成功完成将导致IC芯片测试和安全性的范式转变。