Sensitivity of Logic Cells to Laser Fault Injections: An Overview of Experimental Results for IHP Technologies

In this work, we provide an overview of our front-side Fault Injection (FI) experiments with different logic cells manufactured in two IHP BiCMOS technologies using Riscure equipment for laser FIs. We were able to inject faults into different types of cells including standard library cells as well as into two types of radiation tolerant flip-flops. Experimenting with radiation-tolerant flip-flops faults were injected illuminating areas with PMOS transistors in OFF state. We determined the cells areas, which were sensitive to the laser FI attacks. Only few works discussed this aspect in the past determining NMOS transistors as the sensitive part of the logic cells. Knowledge about the areas which are sensitive to the laser FI attacks can be generalized experimenting with other technologies and used in future by designers to implement corresponding countermeasure(s) at the initial stage of chip development.