On Test Points Enhancing Hardware Security

Recent reverse-engineering attempts to steal a competitive design intellectual property (IP) or to identify the device technology in order to counterfeit integrated circuits (ICs) have raised serious concerns in the IC design community. This paper demonstrates that test points - industry-proven design-for-test technology used to enhance the overall design testability - can also be deployed in the mission mode to obfuscate the circuit's structure, and thus to improve the hardware security against reverse engineering, IC cloning, and IP theft. In particular, it is shown how test points can facilitate the hiding of design functionality from adversaries. As a result, not only the overall design testability is improved, but also effective protection against reverse engineering and other forms of attacks is ensured.