Hardware based Obfuscation for Secure and Trusted Systems: A Comprehensive Study
Saleh Khaled, Omar Darwish, Fathi Amsaad · 2025
Hardware obfuscation techniques aim to protect integrated circuits (ICs) from reverse engineering and intellectual property theft by making their designs harder to understand. This survey explores various types of hardware obfuscation, such as logic locking, camouflage, and layout camouflaging, assessing their effectiveness and usability. It examines their purpose in safeguarding ICs against unauthorized access, highlighting challenges and advancements in implementing these techniques in modern semiconductor design. Hardware obfuscation techniques are used to strengthen the security of integrated circuits (ICs) by making their designs more complicated and hard to analyze, consequently preventing reverse engineering and intellectual property theft. The review looks at different forms of hardware obfuscation, including logic locking, camouflage, and layout camouflaging, evaluating their efficacy and usability. The article explores the role of securing integrated circuits (ICs) from unauthorized access, focusing on the problems and improvements in integrating these strategies in contemporary semiconductor architecture.