Silicon Echoes: Non-Invasive Trojan and Tamper Detection using Frequency-Selective Impedance Analysis

The threat of chip-level tampering and its detection has been widely researched. Hardware Trojan insertions are prominent examples such tamper events. Altering the placement routing a design or removing part circuit for side-channel leakage/fault sensitivity amplification other instances attacks. While semi- fully-invasive physical verification methods can confidently detect stealthy events, they costly, time-consuming, destructive. On hand, virtually all proposed non-invasive suffer from noise and, therefore, have low confidence. Moreover, require activating tampered (e.g., trigger) to compare modifications. In this work, we introduce post-silicon technique applicable different classes events at chip level without requiring activation malicious circuit. Our method relies on fact that modifications (regardless their physical, activation, action characteristics) alter impedance chip. Hence, characterizing lead To sense changes in impedance, deploy known RF tools, namely, scattering parameters, which inject sine wave signals with high frequencies power distribution network (PDN) system measure “echo” signal. reflected various frequency bands reveal based impact size die. validate our claims, performed measurements several proof-ofconcept hardware implementations realized FPGAs manufactured 28 nm technology. We further show deploying Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) distance distinguish between resulting manufacturing process variation chips/boards. Based acquired results, demonstrate Trojans, as well sophisticated P&R, be detected.