The electronics of the future may have advanced security features built into their circuitry to help protect against malicious attacks. Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have demonstrated how protective “logic locks” based on the latest spintronic field can be placed on electronic chip integrated circuits to protect the chip.

“The need for hardware security features reflects the globalized nature of today’s electronics manufacturing,” explains Yehia Massoud of KAUST. Electronics companies often use large, specialized external foundries to manufacture their chips, which minimizes costs but introduces a potential vulnerability to the supply chain. The circuit can be illegally copied by an untrusted foundry to manufacture counterfeit chips, or maliciously modified by adding “hardware trojans” to the circuit, negatively affecting the circuit’s behavior in some way.

Dr. Student in Mesud laboratories. To protect the chip’s security, the ITL team developed an integrated circuit logic interlock based on a component called magnetic tunnel coupling (MTJ).

Divyanshu explains that a logic lock works like a combination lock. If the correct “key” combination signal is not applied to the lock, the operation of the scheme is encrypted. “Keys to the lock are stored in tamper-proof memory, which protects the hardware against multiple threat models,” says Divyanshu.

The logic locking behavior of the MTJ is based on spintronics, a new form of advanced electronics. “Spintronics is a field of research that uses a physical property of electrons called spin in addition to charge,” explains Massoud. The electronic output of the MTJ depends on the spin alignment of the electrons in it. However, only when the MTJ receives the correct switch input will it generate the correct output for the safe circuit to work.

Massoud states that spin-based devices have several advantages over traditional silicon components, including low operating voltage and no standby power consumption. “With the development of manufacturing methods, the possibility of using new structures of spintronic devices in the design of microcircuits has increased,” he adds. “These features make spintronic devices a potential choice for studying hardware security.”

The team’s work showed that Spintronics could be ideal for the logic blocking task. “Our next steps include exploring other rotation devices to develop logic interlock units using the state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities located at KAUST,” says Massoud.