Functional Locking Modules for Design Protection of Intellectual Property Cores

IP cores are now widely used as building blocks in the design of electronic systems. Moreover, since FPGAs are increasingly powerful and contain millions of logic cells, they are now a platform of choice for such electronic systems. Due to their reconfigurability, they are particularly suited to receiving IP cores. However, for the current IP core distribution process to be fair for all parties, the designer needs to maintain control over his IP to limit illegal copying and non-contracted reuse. To this end, a key point is functional locking, which can be used remotely to render the circuit practically useless. Current state-of-the-art lacks a comprehensive comparison of the different locking points that can be found on a usual IP core. This paper presents the first comparative study of the performance of IP core locking schemes.