A Study of Side-Channel Effects in Reliability-Enhancing Techniques

Reliability-enhancing techniques are critical for nanoscale integrated systems under the pressure of various physical non-idealities such as process variations and manufacturing defects. However, it is unclear how these techniques will affect the side-channel information leaked through hardware implementations. The related side-channel effects may have direct implications to the security requirement in a wide range of applications. In this paper, we investigate this new problem for trusted hardware design. Employing information-theoretic measures, the relationship between reliability enhancements and the induced side-channel effects is quantitatively evaluated. Simulation results on EDC/ECC schemes in memory circuits are presented to demonstrate the application of the proposed method.