Low-Cost Obfuscated JPEG CODEC IP Core for Secure CE Hardware

A novel approach for obfuscated JPEG compression/decompression (CODEC) IP core design methodology, suitable for use in re-usable IP core designs, is presented. This incorporates structural obfuscation for architecture or structure hiding from an adversary in order to maximize the complexity against reverse engineering. Additionally, the proposed methodology performs the entire compression and decompression through a single dedicated hardware IP core. To obtain a lightweight (low cost version) of the proposed obfuscated JPEG CODEC IP, particle swarm optimization driven design space exploration is employed. Results of the proposed low cost, obfuscated JPEG CODEC IP core design when compared to un-protected (un-obfuscated) design yielded enhancement in strength of obfuscation of 76%, as well as reduction of 5% compared to un-optimized design.