Third-Party IP Verification and Validation for Post-Silicon Recovered Designs

Mission critical devices have evolved in the last few decades to require smaller node sizes for cost, performance, and energy efficiency resulting in manufacturing of these integrated circuits (ICs) to move to foundries overseas. The use of third-party intellectual property (IP) is also prevalent as it can help reduce design time, cost, and risk by using previously implemented designs. However, integrated third-party IP and untrusted manufacturing creates assurance problems and introduces new vectors of risk. For mission critical devices, assurance of the third-party IP must be carried out by a trusted source. Furthermore, the assurance must include visibility into the post-silicon device returned from the foundry to ensure the third-party IP functionality has not been altered.