Project directory

HOMERE

Hardware TrOjans : Menaces et robustEsse des ciRcuits intEgrés

Nowadays, for economic reasons, most integrated circuits (IC) are conceived, manufactured and tested in foreign countries. So, to secure the total manufacturing process of ICs is a very difficult task: nothing can prevent the insertion of fraudulent modifications to the IC,  Hardware Trojans (HT), during one or several stages of the manufacturing process. These modifications can cause deteriorations in functional behavior of the IC potentially leading to catastrophic consequences when this IC is embarked in critical applications such as avionics, space, military, communications, industry, the nuclear power industry, etc

Detection methods of destructive and nondestructive HT were proposed in the documentation, but none is fully satisfactory today. HOMERE project (Trojans Hardware: Menaces et robustEsse des ciRcuits IntEgrés) is an industrial research project that purposes to develop techniques to ensure confidence in IC manufacturing from untrustworthy sources. HOMERE will focus on the search for new nondestructive methods of detection, and on the improvement of known methods. We will test the effectiveness of these new methods on circuits representative of those used by the partners of project HOMERE (processors general practitioners and cryptographic, chip cards). We will prototype our solutions on programmable circuit (Field Programmable Gate Array, FPGA). HOMERE will also propose design methods of ICs making it possible to facilitate the neutralization of HTs.