Utilizing sub-threshold technology for the creation of secure circuits

Side-channel attacks on the power consumption of a circuit correlate the variations of the power consumption with the internal data processing of that circuit, and can reveal internal secrets. For example, cryptographic circuits can be power-analyzed to reveal their secret keys. The use of the subthreshold-voltage circuits to implement those circuits makes their side-channel power analysis significantly more difficult. The reduced operating voltage, as well as the proportionally larger leakage, result in power variations that are orders of magnitude less than the super-threshold case, and hence much more difficult to measure. This paper will present an analysis of subthreshold voltage technology for secure circuit design, and propose potential applications.