Method for designing high-safety chip active shielding physical protection structure

Abstract

The invention provides a method for designing a high-safety chip active shielding physical protection structure. The chip active physical protection structure has the function that a high-safety chip is prevented from being attacked in an intrusive mode, for example the high-safety chip is tampered or detected in a physical mode. Single-layer metal wires are active shielding wires and the active shielding wires are fully distributed on the surface of the chip. In order to protect a lower-layer physical pattern against attack, the smallest design rule is usually adopted by the metal wires. If patterns designed according to the smallest rule are fully distributed on the chip, the possibility that the chip circuit functional performance failure caused by particle contamination is increased. In order to reduce the volume production chip circuit failure, the width and / or the spacing of the active shielding wires are / is usually widened. If the size of each active shielding wire is widened, the safety of the chip can be reduced. In order to solve the problem of the contradiction between the safety of the chip and the yield of the volume production products, the pitch-variable active shielding physical production structure is further provided, so that dual-improvement in the safety and the yield of the chip products is achieved.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention proposes a design method for an active shielding physical protection structure of a high-safety chip. The invention is suitable for the field of integrated circuit design with high security requirements. Background technique [0002] There are many attack methods for chip security, which can be roughly divided into three categories: non-intrusive attack, semi-intrusive attack, and intrusive attack. Intrusive attacks are also called physical attacks, and usually use tools and methods in chip reverse engineering to remove chip packages, extract layouts, and cut / connect circuits. Adding an active shielding layer on the top layer of the chip has a better defense effect against physical detection and attacks that tamper with some functions of the chip. When the connection of the active shielding layer is physically tampered or detected, the signal transmitted in the active shielding line will change after the chip is powered on, and the acti...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

The variable pitch active shielding physical protection structure proposed by the present invention can effectively solve the problem that the active shielding layer of a high-security chip is contaminated by particles and becomes invalid

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