title: Design and implementation of a new real-time frequency sensor used as hardware countermeasure.
abstract: A new digital countermeasure against attacks related to the clock frequency is presented. This countermeasure, known as frequency sensor, consists of a local oscillator, a transition detector, a measurement element and an output block. The countermeasure has been designed using a full-custom technique implemented in an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), and the implementation has been verified and characterized with an integrated design using a 0.35 mm standard Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology (Very Large Scale Implementation-VLSI implementation). The proposed solution is configurable in resolution time and allowed range of period, achieving a minimum resolution time of only 1.91 ns and an initialization time of 5.84 ns. The proposed VLSI implementation shows better results than other solutions, such as digital ones based on semi-custom techniques and analog ones based on band pass filters, all design parameters considered. Finally, a counter has been used to verify the good performance of the countermeasure in avoiding the success of an attack.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronic Engineering, Computers, and Automatic, University of Huelva, Huelva, Spain. naharro@diesia.uhu.es
authors.forename: Raúl
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jiménez-Naharro
authors.forename: Juan Antonio
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Gómez-Galán
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sánchez-Raya
authors.forename: Fernando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gómez-Bravo
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pedro-Carrasco
mesh_terms: D016494:Computer Security / Q000295:instrumentation*; D003199:Computer Systems; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D009991:Oscillometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013997:Time Factors; D014159:Transducers