US 2020/0090325 A1 · HARDWARE TROJAN SCANNER

Abstract

A method of detecting hardware Trojans in an IC includes providing a golden IC layout data set or SEM image data taken at long dwelling time on an active area of the golden IC after polishing it from the backside. Next, the IC under authentication (IUA) sample is prepared for fast SEM imagining (shorter dwelling time) after backside thinning. Next step is to perform image processing on the IUA's SEM image, which includes histogram equalization with noise filtering using Gaussian and Median filters. In the last step, the IUA sample data with the shorter dwelling time is compared with the golden IC layout data or the golden image data from high quality (longer dwelling time) SEM scanning process. At the end the result of the comparison is used to identify hardware Trojans.

Claims18

Dependent claims

A method of detecting hardware Trojans in an integrated circuit (IC), the method comprising:

providing a first Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) image at a first dwelling-time on SEM, wherein the first SEM image is taken from a Trojan-free sample of the IC;
providing a target sample of the IC;
thinning a backside of the target sample to a predetermined thickness;
capturing a second SEM image of the target IC from its back side at a second dwelling-time, wherein the second dwelling time is shorter than the first dwelling time;
aligning the first SEM image and second SEM image at sample level by using image registration settings;
enhancing the captured second SEM image for increased feature detection;
comparing the enhanced second SEM image with the first SEM image by applying an image-processing algorithm to detect Trojan-caused-changes;
and
producing a hardware Trojan map by grouping regions suspected of having hardware Trojans.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Hardware trojan scanner

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Hardware trojan scanner

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Abstract

Claims18