Security of Electrical, Optical and Wireless On-Chip Interconnects: A Survey

TL;DR

This survey reviews security threats, attack methods, and countermeasures for various on-chip communication technologies including electrical, optical, wireless, and hybrid systems, emphasizing the importance of securing modern SoC architectures.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of threat models, attacks, and defenses across diverse on-chip communication technologies and architectures.

Findings

Identifies key vulnerabilities in on-chip communication systems.

Summarizes existing attack techniques and countermeasures.

Highlights the need for robust security in future SoC designs.

Abstract

The advancement of manufacturing technologies has enabled the integration of more intellectual property (IP) cores on the same system-on-chip (SoC). Scalable and high throughput on-chip communication architecture has become a vital component in today's SoCs. Diverse technologies such as electrical, wireless, optical, and hybrid are available for on-chip communication with different architectures supporting them. Security of the on-chip communication is crucial because exploiting any vulnerability would be a goldmine for an attacker. In this survey, we provide a comprehensive review of threat models, attacks, and countermeasures over diverse on-chip communication technologies as well as sophisticated architectures.