Cryptographically Secure Shield for Security IPs Protection

Probing attacks are serious threats on integrated circuits. Security products often include a protective layer called shield that acts like a digital fence. In this article, we demonstrate a new shield structure that is cryptographically secure. This shield is based on the lightweight block cipher and independent mesh lines to ensure the security against probing attacks of the hardware located behind the shield. Such structure can be proven secure against state-of-the-art invasive attacks. Then, we evaluate the impact of active shield on the performance of security IPs as PUF, TRNG, secure clock and AES using a set of fabricated ASICs with 65 nm CMOS technology of STMicroelectronics. Also, the impact of active shield on Side-Channel Attack (SCA) is evaluated.