Palmprint Biometric Versus Encrypted Hash Based Digital Signature for Securing DSP Cores Used in CE Systems

In the prior articles of reusable intellectual property (IP) core, different facets of their threat models and defence mechanisms against IP Trojan and IP piracy have been presented. This article provides novel comparative perspective between the two security techniques viz. palmprint biometric based approach and encrypted hash-based digital signature approach for IP cores, integrated in Consumer Electronics systems. These reusable IP cores such as finite impulse response filter used in audio devices, HD TVs, etc., discrete cosine transform core used in audio/image/video/compression, fast Fourier transform used in digital video broadcasting and JPEG-CODEC used in image/video compression of camera systems can be secured using the two security methodologies discussed in this article. These both approaches enable detective control against important security threats such as IP piracy, fraudulent claim of IP ownership, overproduction, and IP counterfeiting. The article therefore contributes the following: 1) security comparison of security techniques on digital signal processing IP cores in terms of probability of coincidence and tamper tolerance, 2) comparison between two security techniques in terms of its properties, 3) end to end demonstration of the palmprint biometric security approach, and 4) design flow of the encrypted hash-based digital signature approach.