CAREER: Backside Protection Against Contactless Optical Attacks on Integrated Circuits in Advanced Technology Nodes

如今，从汽车到军事和关键基础设施的不同应用对现代集成电路（IC），特别是片上系统（SoC）的爆炸性需求使其安全性成为最重要的问题。随着封装技术的进步以及对更小、更节能器件的需求，异质集成变得更具吸引力，但使芯片从背面变得更脆弱。在这一领域的现有研究仅限于少数攻击面，没有全面的框架。目前的对策与传统的IC和SoC设计流程不兼容，并且在制造成本和设计开销方面都是昂贵的。该项目的创新之处在于：（1）通过整体安全分类和定量评估方法评估现代集成电路对“来自背面的非接触式光学攻击”的安全漏洞，以及（2）提供一个框架，以在电路，材料和封装层面制定针对光学探测攻击的适当对策。该项目更广泛的重要性在于从电子到材料科学的不同学科，芯片设计师和学生可以更好地了解IC中的数据流量与由此产生的物理签名之间的相关性，这些物理签名可能被攻击者用来通过新的教育材料和先进的仪器提取敏感信息。本计画（1）研究现代集成电路对背面光学攻击的潜在安全漏洞，并开发安全度量来识别设备中易受攻击的模块;（2）开发基于低面积和功率开销电路的解决方案以检测和/或防止光学探测，（3）开发基于材料和封装的对策以减轻背面攻击，最后（4）评估所提出的对抗硅中使用商业芯片或制造的原型的真实的攻击的对策，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响进行评估，被认为值得支持审查标准。

Today, the explosive demand for modern Integrated Circuits (ICs) and in particular the system-on-chips (SoCs) in different applications from automobiles to military, and critical infrastructures makes their security of paramount concern. With the advancements in packaging and the need for smaller and more power efficient devices, heterogenous integration becomes more attractive but makes the chip more vulnerable from backside. Existing research studies in this area are limited to few attack surfaces with no comprehensive framework. Current countermeasures are incompatible with the conventional IC and SoC design flow and are expensive in terms of both manufacturing cost and design overhead. The project's novelties are in (1) assessing the security vulnerabilities of modern ICs against “contactless optical attacks from backside” with a holistic security taxonomy and quantitative evaluation methods, and (2) providing a framework to develop proper countermeasures against optical probing attacks at circuit-, material- and packaging-levels. The project's broader importance is in different disciplines from electronics to material science for chip designers and students to better understand the correlation between data traffic in IC and the resulting physical signatures that could be used by an attacker to extract sensitive information through new education materials and advanced instrumentations. This project (1) investigates potential security vulnerabilities of modern ICs to backside optical attacks and develop security metrics to identify the vulnerable modules in a device; (2) develops low area and power overhead circuit-based solutions to detect and/or prevent optical probing, (3) develops material and packaging based countermeasures to mitigate the backside attacks, and finally (4) evaluates the proposed countermeasures against real attacks in silicon using commercial chips or fabricated prototypes with state-of-the-art optical setups.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.