Non-intrusive testing technique for detection of Trojans in asynchronous circuits

Asynchronous circuits, as any IC, are vulnerable to hardware Trojans (HTs), which might be maliciously implanted in IC designs during outsourced fabrication phases. In this paper, a new testing technique to detect HTs by exploiting the regular side-channel properties of quasi-delay insensitive (QDI) asynchronous circuits is proposed. The technique does not need neither additional circuitry nor significant adjustments in the post-fabrication testing phase. Simulation results show that the proposed technique is able to detect HTs with dimensions smaller than 1% of the original circuit.