Security Challenges in ManyCore Embedded Systems based on Networks-on-Chip (NoCs)
Ermis Papastefanakis, Bruno Maitre, Dominique Ragot · 2015
In this paper we present through an industrial perspective, the current challenges for security of embedded platforms as well as our experience coming from internal or collaborative projects with the academia or industrial partners. Nowadays Multicore and future Manycore architectures require to address security considering the non-separation of different components in the same System-on-Chip (SoC). As a result, security must be implemented for computing nodes, interconnection elements and peripherals. This should be done jointly in software and hardware. In this paper, we focus on embedded systems based on Network-on-Chip (NoC) interconnects with multiple processing elements for which reliability and determinism are key characteristics. Providing security can be done at different levels and has an impact on these capabilities. This impact is measured by identifying the key factors that can pose limits. We start by presenting the architectures of the different platforms used. Secondly we present the scope of the impact analysis, the methodology used and the proposed techniques for protecting resources. We then proceed to present the work realized in different projects as well as some results. Finally we provide our conclusions and direction for future work.