694
7 Countermeasures Against Hardware Trojans
7.5.4 Features of Organizing Hardware Trojan Sandboxing
Procedures During SoC Design Phase
As shown in Fig. 7.17, the new approach to the design of safe SoC presented in [90]
suggest separating the protected chip in two regions:
– “Reliable” region, in which all components have direct access to system resources,
including communication components, peripheral devices, and memory;
– One or several unreliable regions, in which components are executed inside
sandboxes.
The trusted area is controlled by the system integrator; furthermore, all the
resources are developed only by trusted (certified) contractors. Other hardware
components (COTS) and IPs designed by untrusted contractors obtain only indirect access to the system resources located outside the sandbox. Such approach is
actually relatively easy to implement during all stages of SoC chip design.
In this case, at the levels of implementation of the general system specification and
the register transmission level (RTL), the integrator will design the sandbox with all
resources under strict control of the security system and provide the corresponding
interface only to trusted IP designers to integrate their IPs in the designed SoC.
It is actually possible to use the suggested method [93] on the production level
for production of reliable environments and sandbox and separate production of
unreliable elements in other objects. Such SoC is shown in Fig. 7.17 usually also
includes other standard system blocks: processor, memory, peripherals, and at least
two hardware accelerators, which have to be designed in a reliable environment. Four
untrusted IPs in this case will be placed in the sandboxes with two IPs, each of which
Sandboxed IP
Sandboxed IP
Sandboxed IP
Trusted IP
Peripheral devices
Peripheral devices
Memory
Files
Sandbo
Sandbo
Sandbo
Sandbox
Sandboxed IP
Standard IP
Data exchange function embedded in the chip
Fig. 7.17 Integration of an untrusted IC in a protected SoC by means of hardware sandboxing
[116]
7 Countermeasures Against Hardware Trojans
7.5.4 Features of Organizing Hardware Trojan Sandboxing
Procedures During SoC Design Phase
As shown in Fig. 7.17, the new approach to the design of safe SoC presented in [90]
suggest separating the protected chip in two regions:
– “Reliable” region, in which all components have direct access to system resources,
including communication components, peripheral devices, and memory;
– One or several unreliable regions, in which components are executed inside
sandboxes.
The trusted area is controlled by the system integrator; furthermore, all the
resources are developed only by trusted (certified) contractors. Other hardware
components (COTS) and IPs designed by untrusted contractors obtain only indirect access to the system resources located outside the sandbox. Such approach is
actually relatively easy to implement during all stages of SoC chip design.
In this case, at the levels of implementation of the general system specification and
the register transmission level (RTL), the integrator will design the sandbox with all
resources under strict control of the security system and provide the corresponding
interface only to trusted IP designers to integrate their IPs in the designed SoC.
It is actually possible to use the suggested method [93] on the production level
for production of reliable environments and sandbox and separate production of
unreliable elements in other objects. Such SoC is shown in Fig. 7.17 usually also
includes other standard system blocks: processor, memory, peripherals, and at least
two hardware accelerators, which have to be designed in a reliable environment. Four
untrusted IPs in this case will be placed in the sandboxes with two IPs, each of which
Sandboxed IP
Sandboxed IP
Sandboxed IP
Trusted IP
Peripheral devices
Peripheral devices
Memory
Files
Sandbo
Sandbo
Sandbo
Sandbox
Sandboxed IP
Standard IP
Data exchange function embedded in the chip
Fig. 7.17 Integration of an untrusted IC in a protected SoC by means of hardware sandboxing
[116]