Integrated Hardware Watermarking Framework based on 3-factor Encoding, Connectivity Matrix and Hashing for Securing Sharpening Filter IP Cores against Piracy

Abstract

Image processing filter hardware intellectual property (IP) cores are commonly used in consumer electronics (CE) hardware. This paper presents a novel integrated hardware watermarking framework, based on 3-factor encoding, connectivity matrix and hashing framework, for detecting fake/pirated IP designs, before they are potentially integrated into the system-on-chip (SoC) of CE systems. Comparison of the proposed approach with prior works indicated, significantly higher tamper tolerance (against tampering attack), stronger watermark proof as well as lower probability of decoding attack. © 2026 IEEE.