Multi-phase watermark for IP core protection

Abstract

Embedding a strong watermark is sufficient to prove IP core ownership during conflict resolution process. However, watermark embedded at lower levels of abstraction may incur design overhead and complexity. Further, watermark embedded at lower level of design does not help to protect a reusable IP core generated during architectural synthesis (at higher abstraction level). This paper presents a low overhead multi-phase watermark implanted during architectural synthesis that is more robust and tamper tolerant than existing single phase watermarks at higher abstraction level. The average reduction percentage of proposed multi-phase watermark approach compared to other related approach in terms of area, latency and cost is greater than 6%, 5% and 6% respectively. © 2018 IEEE.