Validation of RTL laser fault injection model with respect to layout information

In order for modern security implementations to be trusted, they need to be successfully evaluated against hardware fault attacks. Lasers are excellent means of introducing either single or multiple, yet very precise, faults into an IC. Modeling of laser attacks at RTL can significantly help in securing a design during early design stages. An RTL fault model based on functional relations analysis, to extract localization information early in the design flow, has been proposed in previous works. In order to validate the accuracy of such a model, this paper compares predictions with post-layout results. First the RTL laser fault model is applied on several designs. Then results are compared with the fault space derived from layout, showing that the RTL predictions cover a large percentage of localized attacks.