Reusable intellectual property core protection for both buyer and seller

This paper presents a methodology for IP core protection of CE devices from both buyer's and seller's perspective. In the presented methodology, buyer fingerprint is embedded along seller watermark during architectural synthesis phase of IP core design. The buyer fingerprint is inserted during scheduling phase while seller watermark is implanted during register allocation phase of architectural synthesis process. The presented approach provides a robust mechanisms of IP core protection for both buyer and seller at zero area overhead, 1.1 % latency overhead and 0.95 % design cost overhead compared to a similar approach (that provides only protection to IP seller).