System on chip (SoC) contains multiple intellectual properties (IPs) that work in different clock domains. Several of those IPs may even have multiple clock domains within itself and provided to SoC designers as hard IPs. Different clock domain crossing (CDC) techniques are used to communicate among different clock domains. First In First Out (FIFO) buffers are part of several CDC circuits. This research explores the possible security vulnerabilities of such SoCs in the event of compromised security in FIFO buffers. We investigated few catastrophic possibilities of hardware Trojans in FIFO buffers and discussed its potential consequences. Testing the design using random bit generation showed that the triggering probabilities of such Trojans are less than 8/1000. Our synthesis results show that majority of these Trojans require minimal area and frequency overhead, in the range of .8% and 1%, respectively, if FIFO occupies 10% space of the IP.
Three-dimensional integrated circuit (3-D IC) iscreated by vertically stacking and bonding multiple twodimensional integrated circuits (2-D IC). In the process 3-D IC provides highly dense circuits with significantly more functionality in a relatively smaller footprint. Layers of 3-D IC are electrically interconnected using through silicon via (TSV). TSVs are used to transmit data, clock and power signals. However, yield for TSVs is lower than the conventional interconnects, hence their reliability is of a greater concern. Also, TSV are inductively limited than capacitive limited, which may lead to significant inductive-coupling. In this paper we explore the grouping of thinner TSVs to replace a thick TSV (with identical current carrying capability), which in turn provide redundant TSV paths and improved reliability. It is observed that the proposed structure not only provides redundant path but at the same time, it reduces the TSV inductance, which leads to Ldi/dt noise reduction. Closed form mathematical equations are derived to calculate RLC parasitic of grouped TSVs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work towards investigating the grouping of thin TSVs. Results show the reduction of inductance of up to 56% and provides redundant paths in case of TSV failures without extra design overhead at the expense of maximum 10% reduction in bandwidth.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.