Past Research |
Watermarking of VLSI Layouts
Students: Rexford D. Newbould, Naveeen Narayan, Khusro Sajid
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Watermarking is the embedding of data in a medium for ownership,
verification, distribution tracking, authentication, copyright protection,
and data hiding. It has been well studied for use in digital media such as
audio, digital images, and video. In this work, watermarking was extended
to the realm of computer-aided design (CAD) for physical design of
integrated circuits (ICs) in order to protect and facilitate re-use of
intellectual property (IP) blocks (circuitry). As designs become more
complex and cycle times shorter, the re-use of IP blocks is becoming more
and more important. However, in order to aid in the re-use, improved
methods for securing and tracking ownership need to be in place.
Watermarking valuable design blocks, whether custom transistors or standard
cells, is a practical method of securing ownership of the
property, even after local perturbations in the design. A method of
watermarking circuit elements was developed for fully-custom analog or
digital macrocell designs as well as analog or digital standard cell based
designs. This protection scheme thus applies to analog, digital, and
mixed-signal designs, with the only exception being that of gate array
implemented circuits.
Unwatermarked op amp and watermarked op amp:
This work was a collaborative effort with the Computer Systems Design
Laboratory (director: Prof. Jo Dale Carothers) in the Dept. of Electrical &
Computer Engineering.
Publications:
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Rexford D. Newbould, David L. Irby, Jo Dale Carothers,
Jeffrey J. Rodriguez, and W. Timothy Holman,
"Mixed Signal Design Watermarking for IP Protection,"
Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering, vol. 10, no. 3,
2003, pp. 249-265. [ PDF ]
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Rexford D. Newbould, Jo Dale Carothers,
Jeffrey J. Rodriguez, and W. Timothy Holman,
"A Hierarchy of Physical Design Watermarking Schemes for
Intellectual Property Protection of IC Designs," in
Proc. 2002 IEEE Intl. Symp. on Circuits and Systems, Scottsdale,
AZ, May 26-29, 2002, vol. 4, pp. 862-865. [ PDF ]
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Rexford D. Newbould, David L. Irby, Jo Dale Carothers,
Jeffrey J. Rodriguez, and W. Timothy Holman,
"Watermarking of ICs for IP Protection,"
Electronics Letters, vol. 38, no. 6, March 14, 2002, pp.
272-274. [ PDF ]
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Naveen Narayan, Rexford D. Newbould, Jo Dale Carothers, Jeffrey J.
Rodriguez, and W. Timothy Holman, "IP Protection for VLSI Designs
Via Watermarking of Routes," in Proc. 14th Annual IEEE Intl.
ASIC/SOC Conf., Arlington, VA, Sept. 12-15, 2001, pp. 406-410. [ PDF ]
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David L. Irby, Rexford D. Newbould, Jo Dale Carothers,
Jeffrey J. Rodriguez, and
W. Timothy Holman, "Watermarking of Standard-Cell Feedthroughs in
Mixed-Signal Design," in Proc. 2001 Southwest Symp. on
Mixed-Signal Design, Austin, TX, Feb. 25-27, 2001, pp. 121-125. [ PDF ]
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David L. Irby, Rexford D. Newbould, Jo Dale Carothers,
Jeffrey J. Rodriguez, and
W. Timothy Holman, "Placement Watermarking of Standard-Cell
Designs," in Proc. 2001 Southwest Symp. on Mixed-Signal Design,
Austin, TX, Feb. 25-27, 2001, pp. 116-120. [ PDF ]
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Rexford D. Newbould, David L. Irby, Jo Dale Carothers,
Jeffrey J. Rodriguez, and W. Timothy Holman,
"Mixed Signal Design Watermarking for IP Protection,"
in Proc. 2001 Southwest Symp. on Mixed-Signal
Design, Austin, TX, Feb. 25-27, 2001, pp. 110-115. [ PDF ]
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David L. Irby, Rexford D. Newbould, Jo Dale Carothers,
Jeffrey J. Rodriguez, and W. Timothy Holman,
"Low-Level Watermarking of VLSI Designs
for Intellectual Property Protection," in Proc. 13th Annual
IEEE Intl. ASIC/SOC Conf., Washington, D.C., Sept. 13-16, 2000, pp.
136-140. [ PDF ]
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