Trusted electronics as the foundation of Safety and Security

Functionally safe and trustworthy ICs, circuits, and systems

 

It is becoming increasingly important for electronics to be secured against external attacks in order to ensure their reliable use. With this in mind, it is vital for suppliers and integrators of microelectronics to be able to trace the manufacturing process of components and verify their functionality. Against this backdrop, the Division Engineering of Adaptive Systems EAS is working on a variety of projects as part of the German “Trusted Electronics” flagship initiative.

One of the questions we want to address is how hardware can be converted from an Achilles’ heel into a basis for trustworthiness by incorporating this characteristic into the planning process at the architectural level, starting with the design of the electronics. It is also essential that it apply to all subcomponents. Moreover, we want to apply new design and testing methods in order to support the protection of IP throughout the value chain of microelectronic components and systems.

On the one hand, the projects call upon our skills in the area of design methodology when it comes to secure and reliable integrated circuits and systems, including gray-box verification or the creation of a trustworthy design process for the automotive sector. We also leverage our IC design flow expertise to develop a design process for distributed production that protects IP as a whole thanks to the independent manufacturing of individual system components.