TSV protection: Towards secure 3D-MPSoC

Abstract

Through-Silicon-Vias (TSVs) are the key enabling technology for high performance of three-dimension Multi-processor System-on-Chip (3D-MPSoC). Physical weaknesses of TSVs can be exploited by malicious software to attack the system. By means of the manipulation of the TSV communication an attacker is able to modify, spy and even denial the TSV communication. Extending just 2D security mechanisms to 3D-MPSoC without taking into account the 3D aspects will not protect the system. In this paper we propose 3D-SECTSV, a flexible and efficient security architecture based on a 3D-NoC communication structure able to protect the TSV data exchange of 3D-MPSoCs. We compare our approach with several 3D-protection proposals, including the simple extension of 2D security countermeasures. We show that our solution outperforms other approaches with respect to attack detection while decreasing cost and performance impact on the system.