IP protection of DSP algorithms for system on chip implementation

Silicon technology has now advanced to the point that there is a serious mismatch in the time taken to design advanced silicon-based systems and the time to market for any new product or product derivative. To obviate this delay, a new paradigm is emerging based on intellectual property (IP) exchange, where designers and differing companies share subsystems (virtual cores) between themselves to reduce design time to acceptable levels. To this end, over 150 companies including all the major players formed the Virtual Socket Interface Alliance in March 1997. The protection of IP has become a serious issue as intercompany subsystem design exchange becomes more commonplace. This paper presents new techniques to protect the IP of virtual cores that implement digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms. The approach involves embedding codewords into the design of fundamental signal processing algorithms such as digital filters and the DFT in such a way that proof of authorship can be retained, and, if required, easily identified. The techniques discussed can be adapted to protect other fundamental DSP algorithms such as convolution and correlation. The protection of IP via watermarking techniques is increasingly being applied at all levels of design. It is particularly advantageous if such techniques are applied at the highest abstraction levels in the design flow, and if such techniques are applied at basic algorithm level, they become very difficult to detect at lower levels of system design.