Partial selective encryption: an improved system for protecting VLSI design data in the OASIS format

Protecting proprietary design-file data is a major interest of manufacturers, but traditional VLSI layout file formats have not allowed for this capability short of encrypting an entire file. We demonstrate a method with which the new OASIS P39 VLSI format can be used to facilitate arbitrary-strength encryption by use of the compression flag. The method supports partial encryption of selected components of the file with multiple access keys and the existence of encrypted components is invisible to eavesdroppers.