PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (January 11, 2023) — Dr. Mohamed Chouikha, executive professor, electrical and computer engineering and Chief Scientist & Executive Director, SECURE Cybersecurity Center of Excellence at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU), was awarded $515,208 by the National Science Foundation Excellence in Research program.
The collaborative project includes a co-principal investigator, Dr. Annamalai Annamalai, from the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at PVAMU.
This project aims to define a post-manufacturing test step (prior to electronics system integration) to increase trustworthiness of the integrated circuits (ICs) fabricated at off-shore facilities to validate the conformance of the chip with its original functionality and performance specification.
Mohamed Chouikha, Ph.D., Executive Director, SECURE Cybersecurity Center of Excellence
Dr. Chouikha and his team have proposed two complementary approaches that will be able to effectively detect and localize all types of hardware Trojans. First, they will analyze circuit delays as a method to detect and locate hardware Trojans and develop novel methods such as clock frequency sweeping for targeting Trojans (malicious software code) in presence of process variations. They will also develop an on-chip measurement technique to target paths missed or short paths not testable by the clock sweeping method to detect Trojans. The planned research activities include implementation of different types of hardware Trojans on field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and development of statistical analysis methods for the collected silicon data.
ICs are ubiquitously deployed in modern electronic and information systems that process critical data in our daily lives. The design and fabrication of these ICs are becoming increasingly vulnerable to malicious activities and alterations due to the globalization of electronic design supply chain (i.e., most of the ICs used in electronic systems are now fabricated outside the United States). A combatant could potentially subvert the fabrication process itself by implanting a hardware Trojan into the IC mask to disable or destroy a system at some future time or the Trojan may serve to leak confidential or sensitive information covertly to the adversary.
“This project will also have a significant impact on the education of undergraduate and graduate students at PVAMU,” said PVAMU Vice President of Research & Innovation Magesh Rajan, Ph.D., P.E., MBA. “By integrating the results of this project into various existing courses and offering new courses in the undergraduate and graduate engineering curriculum, PVAMU students will have the privilege of taking part in the advancement the state-of-the-art of hardware security research.”
The goals of this project also align with the long-term institutional mission of PVAMU to achieve national prominence in research and production of African American engineering graduates who will lead research efforts in academic institutions, national laboratories, and leading technology companies.
The broader impacts of this research and educational program will advance the scientific understanding needed to develop low-cost and efficient procedures for detecting malicious alternations in ICs, enhance the existing infrastructure and broaden cybersecurity research capabilities at PVAMU. It will further PVAMU to strengthen the existing collaborations with various Department of Defense agencies as well as industrial and academic partners, promote recruitment and training of underrepresented minorities in STEM disciplines vital to the national security, and continue to grow the graduate programs at PVAMU.
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By Jenna Craig