Distinguished Seminar Series: Professor Randall Geiger, Iowa State University

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Speaker: Prof. Randall Geiger
Website: https://www.ece.iastate.edu/profiles/randall-l-geiger/

Date: March 9, 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Title: Multi-Stationary Modes of Operation in Basic Analog Circuits: A Threat to Analog Hardware Security

Abstract: The vulnerability of analog and mixed-signal circuits to adversarial tampering will be discussed.  A classification of analog hardware Trojans will be given.  A particularly insidious type of analog hardware Trojans that can be embedded in some of the most basic analog circuits will be described.  This type is classified as Power, Area, Architecture, and Signature Transparent (PAAST) Trojans because prior to triggering they have no effect on power, require no additional area, require no architectural modifications, and are signature transparent since they leave no signatures on any power or signal bus.  It will be shown that PAAST Trojans can be embedded as undesired solutions of a set of nonlinear differential equations that also have the desired operation of the circuit as a solution of the same set of nonlinear differential equations.   Examples of both static and dynamic PAAST Trojans embedded in basic analog circuits will be given.  Strategies for improving hardware security by removing vulnerability to PAAST Trojans will be discussed.  

Speaker Bio: Randall Geiger has been a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University since 1991. From 1977 to 1990, he was a faculty member at Texas A&M University where he was a co-founder of the Texas A&M VLSI program. His research interests are primarily in the analog and mixed-signal area with a focus on precision circuit design, data converter design and testing, and more recently on analog hardware security and verification. He is a past president of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, a past chair of the Transactions Committee of the IEEE Periodicals Council, and was recently a co-chair of the 2019 IEEE Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems. He will be a co-chair of the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems which is scheduled to meet in Austin Texas in May 2022.    He is a recipient of the IEEE Millennium medal and is a Life Fellow of IEEE.