What Makes A Chip Tamper-Proof?


The cyber world is the next major battlefield, and attackers are busily looking for ways to disrupt critical infrastructure. There is widespread proof this is happening. “Twenty-six percent of the U.S. power grid was found to be hosting Trojans," said Haydn Povey, IAR Systems' general manager of embedded security solutions. "In a cyber-warfare situation, that's the first thing that would b... » read more

Hardware Security For AI Accelerators


Dedicated accelerator hardware for artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) algorithms are increasingly prevalent in data centers and endpoint devices. These accelerators handle valuable data and models, and face a growing threat landscape putting AI/ML assets at risk. Using fundamental cryptographic security techniques performed by a hardware root of trust can safeguard these as... » read more

Battling Persistent Hacks At The Flash Level


Hardware vendors are beginning to close up security vulnerabilities across a broader range of technology than in the past, a sign that they are taking potential hardware breaches much more seriously. Awareness of security flaws has been growing since the introduction of Meltdown, Spectre and Foreshadow, and more recently, the Cable Haunt attack. The general conclusion among chipmakers is tha... » read more

Week in Review: Iot, Security, Automotive


IoT STMicroelectronics is now supporting LoRaWAN firmware updates over the air (FUOTA) in the STM32Cube ecosystem. Microsoft is adding ANSYS Twin Builder to its Microsoft Azure Digital Twins software, which companies use to create digital twins of machinery and IoT devices that are deployed in remotely. The digital replica of actual devices helps companies predict when maintenance is needed... » read more

A Glossary For Chip And Semiconductor IP Security And Trust


A significant portion of electronic system vulnerabilities involves hardware. In 2015 the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE-MITRE) database recorded 6,488 vulnerabilities. A considerable proportion (43%) can be classified as software-assisted hardware vulnerabilities (see Fig. 1). The discovery of Meltdown and Spectre in January 2018 has sparked a series of investigations into hardware ... » read more

New Security Risks Create Need For Stealthy Chips


Semiconductors are becoming more vulnerable to attacks at each new process node due to thinner materials used to make these devices, as well as advances in equipment used to simulate how those chips behave. Thinner chips are now emitting light, electromagnetic radiation and various other types of noise, which can be observed using infrared and acoustic sensors. In addition, more powerful too... » read more

Security Tradeoffs In A Shifting Global Supply Chain


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss a wide range of hardware security issues and possible solutions with Norman Chang, chief technologist for the Semiconductor Business Unit at ANSYS; Helena Handschuh, fellow at Rambus, and Mike Borza, principal security technologist at Synopsys. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. The first part of this discussion ca... » read more

Configure, Confirm, Ship


Security is a first-order design requirement for processor-based systems. Processor designers implement security functionality directly into the hardware itself to protect the system at its most fundamental layer. System integrators that use processor IP such as Synopsys’ DesignWare® ARC® processors must ensure that they configure and manage the protection and security features correctly, a... » read more

New Approaches For Hardware Security


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss a wide range of hardware security issues and possible solutions with Norman Chang, chief technologist for the Semiconductor Business Unit at ANSYS; Helena Handschuh, fellow at Rambus, and Mike Borza, principal security technologist at Synopsys. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. (L-R) Norman Chang, Helena Handschuh, Mike Borza. Pho... » read more

Protecting Computing Systems in a Post-Meltdown/ Spectre World


When Jann Horn of Google’s Project Zero posted a detailed blog titled “Reading privileged memory with a side-channel,” it set off a firestorm of activity as the post confirmed that secret information inside a computer could be accessed via two different attacks, Meltdown and Spectre. Essentially, both attacks utilize CPU data cache timing to efficiently exploit and leak informatio... » read more

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