Dynamic Security Management of Systems on Chip via Embedded FPGA in 22nm CMOS Technology

There has been a rising demand for more efficient and secure processing on the edge to cope with the number of emerging Internet of Things (IoT) applications. These applications scale from low-duty cycles high-performance tasks to high-duty cycle ultralow power operations. Embedded FPGAs (eFPGAs) can address many of these demands given their flexibility compared to ASIC, low latency, and lower energy consumption compared to CPUs. eFPGAs allow for post-silicon manufacturing patch-ability, adaptive performance, and on-chip control of large SoCs. This paper presents the implementation of eFPGA tailored for secure, efficient, and flexible System-On-Chip (SoC) management. The eFPGA acts as the heart of a Security Management Unit (SMU), which is part of a larger secure SoC platform that combines a True Random Number Generator (TRNG), an AES engine, and a NIST-compliant Lightweight cryptographic engine (LWC). Fabricated on 22nm CMOS technology, the eFPGA was used to dynamically manage the security policies of different IPs in the SoC under a proposed threat model. We report the performance of these applications, showing the benefits the embedded fabric provides.