( ESNUG 464 Item 9 ) -------------------------------------------- [03/30/07]
Subject: ( ESNUG 461 #11 ) How secure is the Cadence Conformal encryption?
> We want to give our fab a flat netlist but want to avoid giving them the
> hierarchical RTL of our design. One idea was to use vpxEncode/vpxProtect
> in Cadence (Verplex) Conformal to encrypt our source code. The fab would
> like to verify our final netlist vs. our RTL but we want it done without
> exposing our RTL. The Verplex manuals say it can read in the encrypted
> files and be able to use them as the golden design to verify vs. the
> final netlist. I see a few potential issues...
>
> - Brian Kane
> Cognio, Inc. Germantown, MD
From: [ The Man With One Red Shoe ]
Hi, John,
Keep me anon, please.
I am not an expert on encryption, but I do have a couple of comments.
First of all, any encryption method can be broken, it just depends on how
determined the attacker is and how much time the attacker has. The goal
of most encryption systems is to make sure that the time an attacker needs
is too long.
Obviously, someone in Cadence can decrypt the RTL. How widely that info is
available within Cadence can only be answered by Cadence.
It might be interesting to look at the recent crack of the encryption of
HD-DVD disks (AACS). A software player's keys were extracted by dumping
the program when running. It is quite possible that a similar approach
might work against the encryption in Conformal.
Ultimately, you need to trust your fab. If you don't trust the fab with
your RTL then perhaps you should be using a different fab. It's been said
regarding DRM applied to music and video that it servers only to keep
already honest people behaving honestly. This may be a similar situation.
The final question to consider is: what if there are issues with the
matching? Your fab cannot debug that and without the RTL, how do you
convince the fab that the problem is purely a tool issue?
- [ The Man With One Red Shoe ]
Editor's Note: This person is an EDA vendor, but not Cadence. - John
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