Intelligent Automation, Inc. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: DMEA182-003

Description

ASIC and FPGA design and manufacturing companies are globally distributed. As a result, third party IP designs sent to offshore to untrusted fabs for manufacture are vulnerable to security threats such as cloning, over-building and reverse engineering. There is a growing need to enhance the security of the ASIC and FPGA supply chain. The blockchain technology which is primarily used in cryptocurrency has proven to be more secure and tamper-resistant in globally distributed scenario, it becomes harder to tamper as the distributed ledger system grows. IAI’s solution will use the calendar blockchain technology and apply to it the FPGA manufacture and design flow to make the process more secure and use physically unclonable functions as hashes for the IC manufactured. If successful, this will transform the FPGA and AISC supply chain flow. Trusted third party IPs can be manufactured in untrusted global fabs and reduce overall cost involved (expensive trusted fabs).