IPRec and Isoblaze: Fuzzy Subcircuit Isomorphism for IP Detection in Physical Netlists

Netlist reverse engineering has many uses, from detecting hardware trojans to recovering missing design source files. However, the basic problem of finding IP in a netlist has not been widely discussed. The problem boils down to subgraph isomorphism on graphs constructed from netlists. We present two approaches to identifying IP in larger circuits. IPRec focuses on exploiting hierarchy in the IP design and is a rather conservative approach, while Isoblaze focuses on local properties and connectivity and is more liberal in matching.