Security Closure of Physical Layouts ICCAD Special Session Paper

Abstract

Computer-aided design (CAD) tools traditionally optimize for power, performance, and area (PPA). However, given a vast number of hardware security threats, we call for secure-by-design CAD flows, to adopt principles of secure hardware design and streamline security closure throughout the flow. The stakes are high for integrated circuit (IC) vendors and design companies, as security risks that are not addressed during design will inevitably be exploited in the field, where vulnerabilities are almost impossible to fix. This paper highlights the need for security closure of physical layouts because efforts taken toward securing ICs at higher abstraction layers may be futile without support for securing the tape-out ready layouts.