Synthesis of Polymorphic Circuits for Hardware Security
Haimanti Chakraborty, Ranga R. Vemuri · 2025
As the conventional CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) transistor scaling is approaching its limits, numerous CMOS-compatible and beyond-CMOS devices are being proposed and evaluated for use in future integrated circuits. Some of these devices have performance, power, and area benefits, while others offer security benefits due to their polymorphic behavior. This chapter introduces polymorphic devices, the advantages they offer, and several state-of-the-art design methodologies to enhance hardware security using polymorphic devices. The second part of the chapter discusses the limitations in designing secure hardware at lower abstraction levels and proceeds to propose several design methodologies which can be integrated with high level synthesis while utilizing polymorphic elements functional units and switch boxes to enhance security.