Trust in Integrated Circuits

DARPA's TRUST in Integrated Circuits program is directed at ensuring trust in integrated circuits that are designed and fabricated under untrusted conditions. This issue has been identified in a recent Defense Science Board study [1] and the problems described in the study are becoming more acute. The majority of Integrated Circuits (ICs) used in complex modern military systems are made off-shore. Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA s) are the dominate IC used in modern weapons systems and the vast majority of FPGA s are made off shore. At the present time the US does not have a comprehensive program to certify that the ICs that are going into U.S. weapons systems do not contain malicious circuits. This paper focuses on describing the structure and goals of the program, along with the challenges facing the effort. The program has wide participation with numerous US government departments. A brief description will be given of some of the novel approaches initially being deployed to address the challenges. The TRUST program is presently focused on three Tasks See also ADM202438. Presesnted at GOMACTech-08, Microsensor Technologies: Enabling Information on Demand, 17-20 Mar 2008, Las Vegas, NV. The original document contains color images.