Protecting Hardware IP by Employing Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)

The globalization of integrated circuits (IC) faces threats from possible untrusted participants involved. One of the challenges faced is Intellectual Property (IP) piracy, which causes major revenue losses to third-party IP vendors (3PIP vendors) and design houses. The design reuse concept trending recently is further compounding this issue. In addition, a dubious actor can reverse-engineer a layout design file to obtain the gate-level netlist and claim ownership of the design. Substantial research has been done in this area to protect IP from being stolen and pirated, however, with the sophistication of attacks, a new dimension of research has been the need of the hour to combat the malicious activities on hardware IP. The presented work proposes a technique of hardware IP transfer by converting the layout file as a non-fungible token (NFT). NFT being a blockchain-powered concept, significant features such as decentralization, uniqueness, etc., are employed in this investigation. A case study with simulation results is presented to illustrate the technique. The smart contract for the proposed work is developed in Solidity language and tested locally on Remix IDE. With this technique, not only the IP can be protected but also the guilty party can be identified accountable for the untrustful act.