Secure transmission of gate level description

Modern system-on-chip (SoC) design cycle strongly depends on secure exchange of intellectual properties (IPs) between core-authors, integrators, foundries etc. However the sharing of IP between authorities involves high security risks in today´s competitive market. Since IP usually involves large amount of data, conventional message encryption techniques needs improvised use in this case. In this paper we have proposed a technique for secure transmission of the gate level description of a combinational circuit over public network. An easy to implement and computationally inexpensive encryption technique is used to encrypt the description. It enables intended receiver to decrypt the description using owner´s certificate. It also facilitates in identifying any intentional modification in the description made by any unauthorized party. Experimental results show that the proposed technique can withstand variety of attacks from intruders.