Area efficient camouflaging technique for securing IC reverse engineering

Md. Liakot Ali; Md. Ismail Hossain; Fakir Sharif Hossain

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0257679

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMarch 8, 2021
27 May 2021 Decision Letter - Hua Wang, Editor PONE-D-21-04892 Area Efficient Camouflaging Technique for Securing IC Reverse Engineering PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Ali, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Specially, one motivation paragraph is required in the revised version. Furthermore, innovations of the paper are not well presented. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 11 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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If you have no competing interests, please state "The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.", as detailed online in our guide for authors at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submit-now This information should be included in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 5. Please amend the manuscript submission data (via Edit Submission) to include authors Fakir Sharif Hossain and Md. Ismail Hossain. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments: One paragraph of motivation for the paper is required. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: This paper explores IC obfuscation method by using true and dummy contact method. The authors have developed a opensource obfuscated standard cell library that can be used to replace some of the standard cells representing critical logic to protect the IP from reverse engineering. Overall the idea was interesting but heavily depends on the fab. Reviewer #2: The study proposed a cost-effective camouflaging technique for two universal get NAND and NOR. It also proposed an open-sourced library with metal routing and dummy contact techniques. The methodology, explanation, and experimental evaluation are well written. The theoretical explanation of how it takes minimal overhead is also satisfactory. However, as the authors claim the proposed method outperforms the existing approaches with the experimental result, they should detail explain how fairly comparison takes place with different technology in Table-3 (even it compares in ratio or percentage of times) in terms of power, performance, and area? Also, in the comparison section, the explanation needs to explain more clearly from the reader's point of view. Like 1) how the values in line 329, 335, and 336 are drives from Table- 3? 2) more detail of the experimental setup for measuring the value of Table2,3 ( detail of Table-1) 3)A traditional small-scale benchmark can also be considered for Table-3. ****** 6. 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Revision 1
9 Jul 2021 Author Response Response to Reviewers Editor Comments: 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf Address: We have rechecked thoroughly the manuscript and corrected as per Plos template that is provided. 2. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information Address: There is no supporting information. All data are within the manuscript. 3. If you did not receive any funding for this study, please state: “The authors received no specific funding for this work.” Address: We have added in the cover letter. 4.Please complete your Competing Interests on the online submission form to state any Competing Interests. If you have no competing interests, please state "The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.", as detailed online in our guide for authors at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submit-now. Address: We have added in the cover letter (The authors have declared that no competing interests exist). 5. Please amend the manuscript submission data (via Edit Submission) to include authors Fakir Sharif Hossain and Md. Ismail Hossain. Address: Thank you for the comment. We have added two more authors in the list. 6. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Address: Thank you for the comment. We have checked thoroughly and found ref. [12] should be replaced by ref. [40] in line 84. Additional Editor Comments: Address: Thank you so much for your valuable comments. We have added one more section named as “Related work and Motivation” in Line 42-116. Reviewer comments 1) In line 30-32 the author mentioned “Another way of making camouflaged cells is to control the doping concentration in the drain area of a MOS gate so that the NMOS remains ON and the PMOS always remains OFF state, resulting in a NAND gate functioning as an inverter [12]” >> Here the author mentioned an obfuscation process of disguising an inverter as a NAND gate using doping concentration. But ref [12] does not provide any such methods. The referencing seems wrong and must be updated. Address: Thank you so much for the comments. We mistakenly did the wrong referencing. Sorry for the mistake. We have revised the reference and put the appropriate ref. of [40] in line 83-84. “Another way of making camouflaged cells is termed as `covert gate' that leverages doping and dummy contacts to create camouflaged cells [40].” 2) In line 90-92 From the designers or the defenders’ point of view, some decisions are made, such as the number of camouflaged cells; the design affords what structure the camouflaged cells is to use in the design in what part of the design it may use these camouflaged cells. >> This sentence contains grammatical error and need to be rewritten. Address: Thank you so much for the comments. We have corrected the sentence in line 148-150 such as “From the defenders' point of view, some decisions on camouflaged cells are made. The number of camouflaged cells the design affords with the structural usage and in what part of the design it may use these camouflaged cells.” Reviewer #1: This paper explores IC obfuscation method by using true and dummy contact method. The authors have developed a open source obfuscated standard cell library that can be used to replace some of the standard cells representing critical logic to protect the IP from reverse engineering. Overall the idea was interesting but heavily depends on the fab. Address: Thank you for the comment. We wholly agreed with you sir. In our future scope we may go for fab and also may try to improve the proposed library. Reviewer #2: The study proposed a cost-effective camouflaging technique for two universal get NAND and NOR. It also proposed an open-sourced library with metal routing and dummy contact techniques. The methodology, explanation, and experimental evaluation are well written. The theoretical explanation of how it takes minimal overhead is also satisfactory. However, as the authors claim the proposed method outperforms the existing approaches with the experimental result, they should detail explain how fairly comparison takes place with different technology in Table-3 (even it compares in ratio or percentage of times) in terms of power, performance, and area? Also, in the comparison section, the explanation needs to explain more clearly from the reader's point of view. Like 1) how the values in line 329, 335, and 336 are drives from Table- 3? 2) more detail of the experimental setup for measuring the value of Table2,3 ( detail of Table-1) 3)A traditional small-scale benchmark can also be considered for Table-3. Address: Thank you for your comments. We have tried to address in our best. 1) For the more clarifications, we have rewritten the Comparison section in line number 379. We put some detail in this section according to TABLE-3 (line-381-391). Hopefully, the measuring value from Table-3 can be understandable. 2) We have added a detail explanation of tools used, experimental setup and how to calculate them in the result section from line 323 to 347. 3) We highly appreciate you direction on “A traditional small-scale benchmark can also be considered for Table-3”. We apologize, currently; we are unable to add them because it is out of scope right now. We do not have such data; however, we might consider it in our futu Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response_to_Reviewers.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257679.r002
8 Sep 2021 Decision Letter - Hua Wang, Editor Area Efficient Camouflaging Technique for Securing IC Reverse Engineering PONE-D-21-04892R1 Dear Dr. Ali, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Hua Wang Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Authors have addressed all my queries and updated the manuscript accordingly. I whole heartedly thank authors for their hard work and hope they will continue work on the topic to cover all the limitations. Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes:** Shafaitul Islam Surush Reviewer #2: No https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257679.r003
Formally Accepted
27 Oct 2021 Acceptance Letter - Hua Wang, Editor PONE-D-21-04892R1 Area Efficient Camouflaging Technique for Securing IC Reverse Engineering Dear Dr. Ali: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Hua Wang Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257679.r004

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