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Paper 2013/579

On Measurable Side-Channel Leaks inside ASIC Design Primitives

Takeshi Sugawara, Daisuke Suzuki, Minoru Saeki, Mitsuru Shiozaki, and Takeshi Fujino

Abstract

Leaks inside semi-custom ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) design primitives are rigorously investigated. The study is conducted by measuring a dedicated TEG (Test Element Group) chip with a small magnetic-field probe on the chip surface. Measurement targets are standard cells and a memory macro cell. Leaks inside the primitives are focused as many of conventional countermeasures place measurability boundaries on these primitives. Firstly, it is shown that current-path leak: a leak based on input-dependent active current path within a standard cell is measurable. Major gate-level countermeasures (RSL, MDPL, and WDDL) become vulnerable if the current-path leak is considered. Secondly, it is shown that internal-gate leak: a leak based on non-linear sub-circuit within a XOR cell is measurable. It can be exploited to bias the distribution of the random mask. Thirdly, it is shown that geometric leak: a leak based on geometric layout of the memory matrix structure is measurable. It is a leak correlated to integer representation of the memory address. We also show that a ROM-based countermeasure (Dual-rail RSL memory) becomes vulnerable with the geometric leak. A general transistor-level design method to counteract the current-path and internal-gate leaks is also shown.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Category
Implementation
Publication info
Published by the IACR in CHES 2013
Keywords
Side-channel attacks
Contact author(s)
Sugawara Takeshi @ bp mitsubishielectric co jp
History
2013-09-14: received
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2013/579
License
Creative Commons Attribution
CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2013/579,
      author = {Takeshi Sugawara and Daisuke Suzuki and Minoru Saeki and Mitsuru Shiozaki and Takeshi Fujino},
      title = {On Measurable Side-Channel Leaks inside {ASIC} Design Primitives},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2013/579},
      year = {2013},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/579}
}
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