Security Analysis of Universal Circuits as a Mechanism for Hardware Obfuscation
This work provides the first security analysis of UCs, demonstrating their robustness against state-of-the-art attacks, which is crucial for securing the globalized IC supply chain.
Universal Circuits (UCs) are evaluated for hardware IP obfuscation against oracle-guided and oracle-less attacks, achieving near-random success rates (~50%) for OG attacks and minimal structural leakage for OL attacks, confirming their feasibility for IP protection.
Universal Circuits (UCs) offer a promising approach to hardware Intellectual Property (IP) obfuscation, leveraging cryptographic principles to hide both structure and function in a programmable logic fabric. Their adaptability makes them especially suitable for the globalized Integrated Circuit (IC) supply chain, where security against threats like reverse engineering is crucial. Despite the potential, UC security remains largely unexplored. This work evaluates UC security against state-of-the-art oracle-guided (OG) and oracle-less (OL) attacks. Results show near-random success rates (approx 50%) for OG attacks whereas OL attacks display minimal structural leakage. Collectively, these findings confirm the feasibility of UCs for IP protection.