Analog/RF IP Protection: Attack Models, Defense Techniques, and Challenges

The globalized and distributed semiconductor supply chain exposes the integrated circuits to security threats. These threats can target the circuit functionality, the secret data processed by the circuit, or the design’s intellectual property (IP). Multiple commercial devices include dedicated hardware root-of-trust for performing security tasks. These approaches protect digital circuits but ignore the vulnerabilities of analog circuits. Recently, researchers have proposed techniques to protect the IP of analog circuits. This brief systematizes the knowledge of analog IP protection. It gives an overview of the reported threat models, defense techniques, and attacks targeting analog/RF circuits.