The HEP research project has presented an open, flexible design for a security chip. This article thus ties in with the focus topic 'Trustworthy electronics' in the December issue of PLUS.
The project 'Hardening the value chain through open-source, trustworthy EDA tools and processors (HEP)', funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), uses open-source, free components and tools to manufacture a chip at the IHP - Leibniz Institute for Innovative Microelectronics.
With the tools and designs used, the research consortium was able to define, design and manufacture a prototype security chip within two years. The resulting Hardware Security Module (HSM) provides, among other things, a crypto accelerator and tamper-proof security functions. The tools used were integrated into a common development environment and extended to include missing functionality. The Google-driven Open Titan project is similar, but HEP is now the first European project. HEP is characterized by a very short development cycle.
Security chips carry out cryptographic operations and are designed to prevent manipulation, malfunctions and accidents. These chips should be open, flexibly adaptable and mathematically proven secure. In view of global value chains with numerous players, the supply of such cost-efficient components represents a major challenge. Open source designs, in which the source code is made available for review by third parties, offer an alternative here, as long as their security can be guaranteed with the circuit design tools (EDA). This is what the HEP research project is working on.
Here is an excerpt of the results of the project:
- Extension of the SpinalHDL language to enable the semi-automated implementation of safety features.
- Formal verification of the VexRiscv processor
- Development of an open-source crypto accelerator
- Development of open masking: counteracts the computation of keys of cryptographic computations.
The manufactured security chip works, but an open, non-volatile memory and an open, physical random number generator are still missing for open-design security products - the project partners are working on solutions for both. The code for the installation on an FPGA has been made publicly available. The tested process shows that designing microchips using open tools can be accessible, inexpensive and quickly available to everyone - students, SMEs and large-scale industry.
Numerous other research institutions and partners from industry are involved in the project, which is led by the Leibniz Institute for Innovative Microelectronics.
