Raise Your Game for Split Manufacturing: Restoring the True Functionality Through BEOL

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel split manufacturing scheme that enhances IP protection by manipulating placement and routing, then restoring functionality through BEOL re-routing, significantly reducing correct connection rates under proximity attacks.

Contribution

It proposes an intertwined placement and routing approach combined with BEOL re-routing to improve the resilience of split manufacturing against IP piracy.

Findings

Achieves 0% correct connection rates against proximity attacks

Induces controllable PPA overheads

Reduces commercial costs by splitting at higher layers

Abstract

Split manufacturing (SM) seeks to protect against piracy of intellectual property (IP) in chip designs. Here we propose a scheme to manipulate both placement and routing in an intertwined manner, thereby increasing the resilience of SM layouts. Key stages of our scheme are to (partially) randomize a design, place and route the erroneous netlist, and restore the original design by re-routing the BEOL. Based on state-of-the-art proximity attacks, we demonstrate that our scheme notably excels over the prior art (i.e., 0% correct connection rates). Our scheme induces controllable PPA overheads and lowers commercial cost (the latter by splitting at higher layers).