Abstract:
In the realm of computing, AC stands as a promising frontier,offering efficiency and
speed. However, it has been reported in the technical literature that most of the ex
isting AC designs are prone to hardware attacks. The recent research has unveiled the
implications of neglecting security in approximate systems. The techniques to secure
exact systems when fabricating chips with untrustworthy components are not applica
ble for approximate systems. The existing technique to mask the effect of Hardware
Trojan(HT) in approximate circuits introduces significant area overhead and power con
sumption. Therefore,our paper presents novel design approaches to effectively mask
the impact of HT, offering a significant 30% and 55% improvement in area and power
efficiency,respectively. Our techniques strike a delicate balance, masking the Trojan
threat while optimizing resource utilization. The effectiveness of proposed techniques
is validated through a practical case study of image processing; three IPs with different
HTs are successfully masked with a PSNR and SSIM of 33dB and 0.92 respectively.
Through rigorous analysis and experimentation, we demonstrate the effectiveness of
these techniques in strengthening security and improving reliability without compro
mising the efficiency of approximate computing systems. Our research seeks to throw
light on the security challenges in approximate computing, while providing practical
solutions to enhance security and reliability of these systems against potential threats
while maintaining optimal performance.
