Side-Channel Protected MPSoC through Secure Real-Time Networks-on-Chip

The integration of Multi-Processors System-on-Chip (MPSoCs) into the Internet -of -Things (IoT) context brings new opportunities, but also represent risks. Tight real-time constraints and security requirements should be considered simultaneously when designing MPSoCs. Network-on-Chip (NoCs) are specially critical when meeting these two conflicting characteristics. For instance the NoC design has a huge influence in the security of the system. A vital threat to system security are so-called side-channel attacks based on the NoC communication observations. To this end, we propose a NoC security mechanism suitable for hard real-time systems, in which schedulability is a vital design requirement. We present three contributions. First, we show the impact of the NoC routing in the security of the system. Second, we propose a packet route randomisation mechanism to increase NoC resilience against side-channel attacks. Third, using an evolutionary optimisation approach, we effectively apply route randomisation while controlling its impact on hard real-time performance guarantees. Extensive experimental evidence based on analytical and simulation models supports our findings

Security of Electrical, Optical and Wireless On-Chip Interconnects: A Survey

The advancement of manufacturing technologies has enabled the integration of more intellectual property (IP) cores on the same system-on-chip (SoC). Scalable and high throughput on-chip communication architecture has become a vital component in today's SoCs. Diverse technologies such as electrical, wireless, optical, and hybrid are available for on-chip communication with different architectures supporting them. Security of the on-chip communication is crucial because exploiting any vulnerability would be a goldmine for an attacker. In this survey, we provide a comprehensive review of threat models, attacks, and countermeasures over diverse on-chip communication technologies as well as sophisticated architectures.Comment: 41 pages, 24 figures, 4 table

Novel DVFS Methodologies For Power-Efficient Mobile MPSoC

Low power mobile computing systems such as smartphones and wearables have become an integral part of our daily lives and are used in various ways to enhance our daily lives. Majority of modern mobile computing systems are powered by multi-processor System-on-a-Chip (MPSoC), where multiple processing elements are utilized on a single chip. Given the fact that these devices are battery operated most of the times, thus, have limited power supply and the key challenges include catering for performance while reducing the power consumption. Moreover, the reliability in terms of lifespan of these devices are also affected by the peak thermal behaviour on the device, which retrospectively also make such devices vulnerable to temperature side-channel attack. This thesis is concerned with performing Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) on different processing elements such as CPU & GPU, and memory unit such as RAM to address the aforementioned challenges. Firstly, we design a Computer Vision based machine learning technique to classify applications automatically into different categories of workload such that DVFS could be performed on the CPU to reduce the power consumption of the device while executing the application. Secondly, we develop a reinforcement learning based agent to perform DVFS on CPU and GPU while considering the user's interaction with such devices to optimize power consumption and thermal behaviour. Next, we develop a heuristic based automated agent to perform DVFS on CPU, GPU and RAM to optimize the same while executing an application. Finally, we explored the affect of DVFS on CPUs leading to vulnerabilities against temperature side-channel attack and hence, we also designed a methodology to secure against such attack while improving the reliability in terms of lifespan of such devices

Embedded System Design

A unique feature of this open access textbook is to provide a comprehensive introduction to the fundamental knowledge in embedded systems, with applications in cyber-physical systems and the Internet of things. It starts with an introduction to the field and a survey of specification models and languages for embedded and cyber-physical systems. It provides a brief overview of hardware devices used for such systems and presents the essentials of system software for embedded systems, including real-time operating systems. The author also discusses evaluation and validation techniques for embedded systems and provides an overview of techniques for mapping applications to execution platforms, including multi-core platforms. Embedded systems have to operate under tight constraints and, hence, the book also contains a selected set of optimization techniques, including software optimization techniques. The book closes with a brief survey on testing. This fourth edition has been updated and revised to reflect new trends and technologies, such as the importance of cyber-physical systems (CPS) and the Internet of things (IoT), the evolution of single-core processors to multi-core processors, and the increased importance of energy efficiency and thermal issues