hardware intrinsic security: fabless perception & awareness study

The HIS Initiative and GSA are concerned about the increasing threat of counterfeiting, cloning and theft-of-service to their members.  New secret key storage approaches used to make IC devices unclonable have come to market, including hardware intrinsic security (HIS).  To gauge perceptions and awareness around counterfeiting, secret key storage and HIS, the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) and the HIS Initiative collaborated in mid 2010.  The collaboration resulted in an online survey—the HIS Usage Survey—conducted July-August 2010. The research for the report was conducted by the HIS Initiative and based on the anonymous survey results. 

Key survey findings include:

• The need for secret key storage in the semiconductor industry is strong.
• Awareness of secret key storage techniques is low, while awareness of counterfeiting is high. 
• Cost is the top barrier that must be addressed to increase the adoption of secret key storage and HIS, in particular. 

Download Hardware Intrinsic Security: Fabless Perception & Awareness Study (PDF, 189 KB, October 2010)

Future Fab Article
This article previously appeared in Future Fab International, vol. 37, and is republished here with permission.