The Global Integrated Circuit Supply Chain Flow and the Hardware Trojan Attack

Abstract

The complexity of modern designs, the significant cost of research and development, and the shrinking time-to-market window heavily enforce the horizontal integrated circuit design flow. Many entities across the globe might be involved in the flow and none are necessarily trusted. A malicious party can implement a hardware Trojan attack through manipulating a circuit to undermine its characteristics under rare circumstances at different stages of the flow before and after circuit manufacturing. Detection of hardware Trojans using existing pre-silicon and post-silicon verification techniques is a very challenging task because of the complexity of modern designs, their verity of application, and limited time for verification. This chapter provides an overview on the global supply chain for integrated circuits and the hardware Trojan attack.