Hardware Activation by Means of PUFs and Elliptic Curve Cryptography in Field-Programmable Devices
Luis Parrilla, Encarnación Castillo, Diego Pedro Morales, Antonio García · Electronics · 2016
Reusable design using IP cores requires of efficient methods for protecting the Intellectual Property of the designer and the corresponding license agreements. In this work, a new protection procedure establishing an activation protocol in a similar way to the activation process in the software world is presented. The procedure, named SEHAS (Secure Hardware Activation System) allows the distribution of cores in either Blocked (not functioning) or Demo (functioning with limited features) modes, while ensuring the license agreements by identifying not only the IP core but also the implementation device, using Physically Unclonable Functions (PUF). Moreover, SEHAS secures the exchange of information between the core and the core vendor using an Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem (ECC). This secure channel allows the IP core vendor to send a unique Activation Code to the core in order to switch it to the Activated Mode, thus enabling all its features.