SRAM Imprinting for System Protection and Differentiation
Jubayer Mahmod, Matthew Hicks · 2024
The foundation of trusted computation depends on the ability to verify the authenticity of the underlying hardware. This need is further compounded by the presence of counterfeit components in the market, highlighting the necessity for pre-deployment and run-time chip identification techniques. Current solutions involve burning authentication information in physical fuses or creating a unique mask for each integrated circuit, which are either costly or susceptible to forgery. While many solutions have been proposed to prevent chip counterfeiting at design time, no accurate, reference-free, and cost-effective solutions exist for chip buyers to authenticate their purchases in the pre-deployment phase and enable software-level verification at runtime. The lack of industry-standard authentication methods forces chip buyers to either adopt expensive solutions, such as X-Ray imaging, or simply rely on blind faith.