LOTUS: A Scalable Framework to Lock Multimodule Designs With One-Time Self-Destructing Key
Mona Hashemi, Siamak Mohammadi, Trevor E. Carlson · IEEE Embedded Systems Letters · 2024
The involvement of external parties in integrated circuits (IC) supply chain has raised security issues such as cloning, overproduction, and unauthorized integration/activation. One potential solution to this problem, logic locking, restricts access unless the correct key is provided. Existing locking methods target limited attacks and show scalability issues. This paper presents LOTUS, a scalable and multi-layered locking framework that provides a solution for multi-module designs by employing pseudo-dynamic keys. Most importantly, it triggers an irreversible failure in function once applying an incorrect key. The evaluation shows resiliency against various deobfuscation attacks like KC2, AppSAT, OMLA, SAIL, and SCOPE with low overhead. Due to its scalability, low overhead, and destructive-when-wrong structure, LOTUS is a practical solution for large, complex, and safety-critical designs.