HAL -- An Open-Source Framework for Gate-Level Netlist Analysis

TL;DR

HAL is an open-source framework that simplifies gate-level netlist analysis with a user-friendly GUI, extensible plugins, and APIs, fostering widespread adoption and advancing hardware reverse engineering research.

Contribution

It introduces a versatile, open-source platform with plugins and APIs that enhance gate-level netlist analysis and facilitate research, education, and industry applications.

Findings

Widely adopted in academia, industry, and government

Supported numerous academic publications and educational activities

Collected significant community engagement on GitHub

Abstract

HAL is an open-source framework for gate-level netlist analysis, an integral step in hardware reverse engineering. It provides analysts with an interactive GUI, an extensible plugin system, and APIs in both C++ and Python for rapid prototyping and automation. In addition, HAL ships with plugins for word-level modularization, cryptographic analysis, simulation, and graph-based exploration. Since its release in 2019, HAL has become widely adopted in academia, industry, government, and teaching. It underpins at least 23 academic publications, is taught in hands-on trainings, conference tutorials, and university classes, and has collected over 680 stars and 86 forks on GitHub. By enabling accessible and reproducible hardware reverse engineering research, HAL has significantly advanced the field and the understanding of real-world capabilities and threats.