On-Chip Performance Monitoring for Security in Reconfigurable Hardware

Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are fundamental in embedded system design. The reconfigurable nature allows quick alterations to be made to meet desired specifications. An issue that arises from reconfigurability, however, is that FPGAs are particularly vulnerable to security breaches. The security breaches of concern are thermal or voltage tampering to produce faults. This study proposes the use of a 31-length oscillator chain on a NEXYS A7 with stabilization hardware to detect these thermal-based attacks through monitoring in real time. The proposed systems were tested at frequencies both inside and outside the standard operating procedure of the device and determined that frequency changes of over 20% from a range of −10[Formula: see text]C to 80[Formula: see text]C could be used to detect thermal-based attacks. This can be incorporated with additional research on Routing delay sensors to ultimately secure FPGA-based devices.