This thesis aims towards devising a non-destructive testing methodology for ICs fabricated
by a third party manufacturer to ensure the integrity of the chip. With the growing trend of
outsourcing, the sanity of the final product has emerged to be a prime concern for the end
user. This is especially so if the components are to be used in mission-critical applications
such as space-exploration, medical diagnosis and treatment, defense equipments such as
missiles etc., where a single failure can lead to a disaster. Thus, any extraneous parts
(Trojans) that might have been implanted by the third party manufacturer with a malicious
intent during the fabrication process must be diagnosed before the component is put to use.
The inherent stealthy nature of Trojans makes it difficult to detect them at normal IC
outputs. More so, with the restriction that one cannot visually inspect the internals of an IC
after it has been manufactured. This obviates the use of side-channel signal(s) that acts like
a signature of the IC as a means to assess its internal behavior under operational conditions.
In this work, we have selected power as the side-channel signal to characterize the internal
behavior of the ICs. We have used two circuit partitioning based approaches for isolating and
enhancing the behavioral difference between parts of a genuine IC and one with a sequence
detector Trojan in it. Experimental results reveal that these approaches are effective in
exposing anomalous behavior between the targeted ICs. This is reflected as difference in
power-profiles of the genuine and maligned ICs that is magnified above the process variation
ensuring that the discrepancies are observable.
