Characterizing laser-induced pulses in ICs: methodology and results

Like other silicon integrated circuit (IC) domains, the smart card market is very competitive and main actors are constantly trying to design the cheapest and safest circuits to ensure their consumers' satisfaction. These specificities lead smart cards actors to design standard cell-based tamper resistant ICs and to characterize their circuits1 sensitivity. In this paper, we present some experimental results aimed at characterizing the sensitivity to laser-induced transient pulses (and their duration) of elementary cells from the 0.13 mum standard cell library STM HCM0S9GP. They were obtained for a specially designed and fabricated experimental circuit. The data obtained here allow us for better understanding of laser attacks and would be used to design integrated circuits with better protection against such attacks. The final goal of this work is to build and augment new simulation models dedicated to laser-induced faults aimed specifically at smart card industry